Android Continues to Dominate Smartphone Market by Significant Margins

We’ve known for quite some time now that Android has been dominating the smartphone market for the past couple of years. In fact, Android’s market share has been at least double that of Apple’s for a long period of time. There are several factors that are contributing to this and the most recent numbers begin to really put things into perspective.

In Q2 of 2013, Android has encompassed an enormous market share of 79.3%. This is absolutely huge as is as become clear that Android is the king of the mobile space and is showing absolutely no signs of letting up. While Android’s market share is up from 69.1% just over a year ago, its competitors’ share is consequently going down. Blackberry for example has hit an all-time low, which is very unfortunate news seeing as the company put so much faith in its Blackberry 10 OS and Z10 device. Going from 5% last year to 3% this quarter just may be a sign that Blackberry is fading into oblivion.

Not all of Android’s competitors are losing market share however. Microsoft has seen success alongside Nokia’s Lumia line of devices and has actually overtaken Blackberry as number 3 in market share going from 3.1% last year to 3.7% this quarter. Whether this change is a result of Microsoft’s success or Blackberry’s failure is unclear, but it is definitely certain that the mobile market is becoming increasingly competitive.

Perhaps the biggest fall was from the folks over in Cupertino. Apple’s market share fell from 16.6% last year to 13.2% this quarter. However, Apple’s new iPhone coming later this year is likely to gain some of that momentum back. Likewise, Blackberry’s new OS is still in its infancy and certainly has plenty of room to grow. The IDC states that “BlackBerry will need time and resources to evangelize more end users”.

Android’s success is thanks to an increase in the number of Chinese manufactures pushing out devices. The open-source model certainly has its advantages when it comes to numbers. However, it unfortunately is responsible for an extreme lack of unity across devices, making for a confusing and inconsistent Android ecosystem.