Android smartphones took 74 per cent of all handset sales for the first quarter of this year, with Samsung making up the highest market share.
According to data from tech research company Gartner, Google’s mobile OS now accounts for nearly three quarters of all handset sales, seeing a year-on-year rise of 20 per cent.
156 million Android devices were sold during Q1 2013 and smartphone sales in general increased by 63 million units worldwide to 210 million for the quarter. Smartphone sales now account for almost half of all mobile phones sales, which stand at 425 million units for the first three months of this year.
“There are two clear leaders in the OS market and Android’s dominance in the OS market is unshakable,” said principal research analyst at Gartner Anshul Gupta. “With new OSs coming to market such as Tizen, Firefox and Jolla we expect some market share to be eroded but not enough to question Android’s volume leadership.”
Although Samsung has released no official figures, Gartner estimates that Samsung accounted for 30.8 per cent of all smartphones sold in the quarter, up from 27.6 per cent last year boosted by the Samsung Galaxy S4 release.
Apple came in second with 18.2 per cent of the smartphone market share, down from 22.5 per cent for the same period in 2012. The widening gap between Apple and Samsung looks only set to continue as the Samsung Galaxy S4 sales rise and Apple has no new models in its near future to replace the iPhone 5.
“We expect the new Galaxy S4 to be very popular despite being more of an evolution than a truly revolutionary device compared to the S3,” said Gupta. “Apple is faced with the challenge of being increasingly dependent on the replacement market as its addressable market is capped. The next two quarters will also be challenging, as there are no new products expected to be coming before the third quarter of 2013.”
In April, Tim Cook practically confirmed there would be no summer launch for the iPhone 5S, iPhone 6 or iPad mini 2, saying “our teams are hard at work on some amazing new hardware, software and services we can’t wait to introduce this fall and throughout 2014.
Can’t decide between the Apple and Samsung smartphone offerings? Read our iPhone 5 vs Samsung Galaxy S4 comparison.
