Smartphones lead mobile sales, Android moves into no. 3 spot

Mobile handset sales continued their global growth last quarter thanks largely to the increased sales of smartphones. According to data from analytics firm Gartner, smartphone sales were up over 50 percent year-over-year for a total of 61.6 million units sold, with the top four OS vendors accounting for 91 percent of the worldwide smartphone OS market.

Handset sales in general grew by 13.8 percent during the second quarter of 2010 compared to 2009, with smartphones making up 19 percent of overall device sales. Gartner noted that new products from Apple, HTC, and Motorola helped boost the numbers, and predicted that the launches of updated operating systems would keep growth going throughout the rest of 2010.

The top four smartphone OSes were Symbian (41.2 percent), RIM (18.2 percent), Android (17.2 percent), and iOS (14.2 percent), with Android phones eclipsing iOS devices during the quarter and taking the number three spot away from Apple. This is not all that surprising, given the number of reports noting that Android phones have been selling at a greater clip than iPhones—Gartner attributes this to tight iPhone inventory prior to the iPhone 4 launch, as well as the difference in company attitudes when it comes to OS exclusivity.

"A nonexclusive strategy that produces products selling across many communication service providers (CSPs), and the backing of so many device manufacturers, which are bringing more attractive devices to market at several different price points, were among the factors that yielded its growth this quarter," Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi said of Android's impressive growth numbers.

Gartner added that RIM's BlackBerry OS 6.0 and new devices like the Torch would help the company maintain its position during the third quarter, but that those factors would do more to keep existing BlackBerry users than attract new ones. Like Nielsen's data from last week, Gartner's numbers showed that Android was closing in on RIM, with only one percentage point of market share separating them.

http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/index/~3/IC4tZ4v4RYI/smartphones-lead-mobile-sales-android-moves-into-no-3-spot.ars


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