Almost 80% of smartphone sales are accounted for by Android

According to the latest data from the research company IDC, sales of Android smartphones increased by 73.5% compared to last year. 

In the last quarter, 187.4 million devices on this platform were sold, which is 79.3% of all smartphones purchased. The second in the list of the most purchased platforms was iOS, whose share is 13.2% (31.2 million devices).

Despite a solid gap from the leader, Apple’s mobile OS is significantly ahead of its next rival – Windows Phone. Its share in the global market is 3.7% (8.7 million devices). At the same time, the comparison of indicators for the second quarter of 2012 and 2013 also reflects the growth of sales of these platforms: iOS by 20%, and Windows Phone by 77.6%.

Among the main market players, BlackBerry has greatly slowed down, the total share of which decreased from 4.9% to 2.9%, and sales fell by 11.7%.

According to IDC, Samsung Galaxy S4 became the driving force of Android growth, plus LG, Huawei, Lenovo and ZTE also showed good results.

The rise of Windows Phone is mostly due to the efforts of Nokia, whose sales accounted for 81.6% of all smartphones on the Microsoft mobile platform in the past quarter. In turn, BlackBerry has reached a new record low in the history of IDC. It’s no secret that the Canadian pioneer has rather gloomy prospects in the smartphone market.

The reasons for the large Android gap are quite simple: wide choice, availability and price, which allow consumers to abandon conventional phones in favor of smartphones. In this regard, it becomes clear why the estimated debut cost of the next Apple device, which, according to the company’s promises, will appear on the market this fall, should not exceed the cost of the iPhone 5, which to some extent will be possible thanks to Apple’s decision to release a new generation of iPhone in a plastic case (cheaper in terms of production).

Source: techcrunch.com