Research firm Gartner has spelled out Android and Apple’s dominance in the global smartphone market, revealing the Q1 sales figures today.
Android moved to 36 percent share from 9.6 percent in the Q1 2010, with sales increasing to 36 million from 5 million year-over-year (YoY).
Symbian, the now defunct smartphone OS, fell from 44.2 percent share to 27.4 percent, even though sales increased to 27.6 million from 24.1 million. Symbian should eventually fall to 0 as Symbian has been left for dead by Nokia as they move on to Windows Phone 7.
Apple’s iOS saw 16.9 million sales and 16.8 percent share, up from 15.3 percent share and 8.4 million sales.
RIM, despite growth for its BlackBerry smartphones, saw market share collapse to 12.9 percent from 19.7 percent. Sales increased to 13 million from 10.75 million.
Microsoft saw a weak introduction for its Windows Phone 7 line and market share fell to 3.6 percent from 6.8 percent. Sales saw a minor fall, from 3.7 million to 3.66 million.
Other OS, like Bada, accounted for the rest of the sales.
Result for: market share
Bloomberg is reporting that Microsoft will end up paying Nokia over $1 billion for the recent Windows Phone 7 deal, through development and promotional costs.
“Nokia will pay Microsoft a fee for each copy of Windows used in its phones, costs that will be offset as Nokia curtails its own budget for software research and development,” says one of the sources even though the full agreement has not been signed yet.
The deal will last for “over 5 years.”
Most analysts have called the deal a winner for Microsoft, who will gain a huge platform boost for a relatively insignificant amount of money. Nokia, on the other hand, has seen their shares fall 25 percent since the announcement, as investors doubt the move will help fix Nokia’s faltering market share.
Additionally, margins at Nokia have fallen to just 5 percent in 2010 from 19 percent in 2001.
Result for: market share
According to Gartner, Android has moved into second place in global smartphone sales, as of the Q3 2010.
The mobile OS saw 1400 percent growth year-over-year, thanks to strong sales of new devices.
Apple continued strong growth as well, seeing 91 percent growth year-on-year on an already established brand.
Adds Gartner research vice president Carolina Milanesi: “This is the third consecutive double-digit increase in sales year-on-year, indicating that consumer demand is healthy. This quarter saw Apple and Android drive record smartphone sales.”
Smartphone sales almost doubled, exploding from 41 million to 81 million year-over-year.
In the smartphone market, Symbian remained king, with a 36.6 percent market share. Android took second at 25.5 percent, and iOS took 16.7 percent, good for third. BlackBerry moved down to fourth, with 14.8 percent.
Windows Mobile and other mobile OS accounted for the remaining 6.4 percent.
