Gartner weighs in with smartphone market results...

Last analyst cab off the rank, Gartner has added their two cents on the state of the mobile market, broadly agreeing with those figures previously reported.

As AndroidNZ predicted, Android saw more than double the market share of its smartphone platform rival iOS despite the hype that surrounded the iPhone's "super quarter" in which pent-up demand, a new product launch and the holiday season all combined to artificially inflate its sales for the period.

According to Gartner's figures, 35.45 million iPhones were sold during Q4 for 24% share, (helping sneak Apple's total handset share past LG's by half a percent for the whole of 2011 and into third place in the process). However, Android powered smartphones accounted for 75.9 million phones in the fourth quarter, taking 51% of the market, despite the "perfect storm" of advantageous conditions that helped Apple's 24% Q4 performance.

Comparing fourth quarter performance year on year, iOS grew 150% while Android handily topped that with 170% growth.

Echoing AndroidNZ's analysis of Apple's Q4, Gartner cautions that such a "blowout" quarter is unlikely to be repeated for at least the next two quarters, predicting a significant market share decline as “the upgrade cycle to the iPhone 4S slows” in the lead up to an expected return to the end-of-June launch timeframe and a hotly anticipated new model.

In the handset battle, leading Android vendor Samsung trailed Apple by fewer than 1.5 million units for a Q4 total of 34 million, more than half being Galaxy S II models. Nevertheless, Gartner gives the smartphone crown for 2011 to Apple's iPhone by 0.4%, with Nokia following second place Samsung by 0.6% for a very close battle for the top spot. Notable also was the growth in the mid and low-end of the market, with both ZTE and Huawei gaining market share.

Nokia's market share fell by 8.7 points from 2010 but the Lumia 800 and Lumia 710 WinPhone devices launched in Q4 2011, and will likely arrest the brand's decline somewhat as take-up of the new handsets accelerates.

Source: Gartner