Android market share soars at expense of Symbian

Android's market share grew by a colossal 888 per cent over the past 12 months, placing it hot on the heels of the Symbian platform, which saw its lead cut by half, according to new figures from Gartner.

Symbian devices were outsold by Android handsets during the fourth quarter of 2010, but the use of the Nokia-owned operating system in Fujitsu, Sharp and legacy products from Sony Ericsson and Samsung allowed the platform to retain its lead, explained Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner.

"Android sales in the fourth quarter of 2010 continued to be driven by the broad availability of many high-end products from HTC (Desire range, Incredible and EVO), Samsung (Galaxy S) and Motorola (Droid X, Droid 2)," she said.

Meanwhile, RIM's BlackBerry operating system saw its market share decrease by four per cent, giving it just 0.3 per cent more share than Apple's iOS.

Microsoft also continued to struggle in the mobile market, despite launching Windows Phone 7 at the back end of 2010. The platform was used in just 4.2 per cent of devices at the end of 2010, but is predicted to be the fastest growing platform this year.

Smartphone sales were up by over 70 per cent last year, and accounted for a fifth of the 1.6 billion mobile phones sold, showing that they have penetrated the mainstream market.

Smartphone sales remain concentrated in markets where buyers have more disposable income, and where networks are fast enough to support the full features.

Western Europe and North America accounted for 52.3 per cent of global smartphone sales in the fourth quarter, Gartner noted.