Android further extends its lead in smartphone OS market share

Another quarter, another increase in market share for Android, with a commanding 59%, representing 89.9 million handsets shipped. That’s a year on year change from  36.1% or 36.7 million units, which works out to growth of 145% if you’re keeping score.

Based on the number of days in the quarter, Androids were selling at 988,000 phones each and every day, just a sniff under the million a day milestone. Given the growth trend, it seems inevitable that as of right now, two thirds of the way into the second quarter, that the million threshold has been passed and there will be partying going on at Google HQ.

Android’s nearest rival, Apple’s iOS, has reportedly shipped on 35.1 million handsets – not too shabby a performance by any measure. The iPhone’s growth over Q01 ’11 was 88.7%, but market share stagnated at 23%, the same share it captured in the Q04 of 2011. That’s a little misleading however, as the December figures were inflated by a burst of purchasing which had been delayed to coincide with a later than usual new model launch.

Sadly for the WinPhone fans, Microsoft’s mobile OSes combined fell from 11.6% to 6.8%. Blackberry’s performance fared little better with 8.1% in December dropping to 6.4% in Q01. Both WinPhone and BBOS lost 29% year on year. As expected, Symbian’s drop YoY was precipitous, a staggering 60% fall.

Source: IDC