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Android smartphone shipments grew a whopping 73.5 percent between the second quarter of 2012 and Q2 2013, according to research firm IDC’s latest numbers. 187.4 million Android-powered phones shipped in the most recent quarter, representing 79.3 percent of all smartphones shipped during the quarter. The next closest smartphone platform was iOS, which shipped just 31.2 million units, accounting for 13.2 percent of overall share.

Apple’s mobile OS still blew away its next closest competitor (and still grew 20 percent in terms of device shipments year over year), Windows Phone, which saw 8.7 million handsets shipped for 3.7 percent share of the global market. But Windows Phone also experienced growth at roughly the same rate, with shipments overall climbing 77.6 percent year over year. BlackBerry, predictably, hurt the worst of the major players, dropping from 4.9 percent overall share to just 2.9 percent, and shipping 11.7 percent fewer devices than during the same time last year.

What’s causing the big Android bump IDC says the Samsung Galaxy S4 was a strong driver, but LG, Huawei, Lenovo and ZTE also had really good quarters with shipments in the double digits. The Android platform represented a win for almost everyone playing in that sandbox, however, as even small manufacturers saw success targeting small, niche markets in developing countries with affordable smartphones.

Windows Phone owes almost all of its growth to Nokia, which accounted for 81.6 percent of all smartphones shipped based on Microsoft’s mobile platform during the quarter. BlackBerry hit a new all-time low, in terms of IDC’s history of tracking market share. IDC says not to count them out because of BB10 progress, but it’s no secret that things are looking grim for the Canadian smartphone pioneer.

The big takeaway here is pretty clear, in terms of the top two players: Android is on fire because of choice, availability and price point in emerging markets focused on shifting to smartphones from feature phones on limited budgets. That means it’s even more crucial to watch what Apple debuts this fall in terms of a low-cost iPhone device, which is rumored to be based around the iPhone 5 and sport a plastic back that’s cheaper to produce.

The last time Kantar World Panel released its smartphone platform market share report, iOS had been announced the winner by an extremely slight margin as it had a 48.1 percent market share, while Android’s market share sat around 46.7 percent. Today, Kantar World Panel has come out with a new report of smartphone market shares over the past three months, and it looks as though iOS’ slight lead in their last report didn’t last.

In Kantar’s latest report, Android has once again taken the lead in the smartphone market share wars with a lead of 51 percent, while Apple’s market share dropped to 43 percent. Considering the holiday season occurred during these past three months, and how many tablets and smartphones run Android, we’re not completely surprised by this turn of events. With more customers making more educated decisions when it comes to their smartphones and tablets, we’ll be seeing Android’s market share continue to rise, that is, unless Apple announces its low-budget iPhone as that could certainly spark a huge rise in the iOS’ market share.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: DDoS Attackers Using iMessage With No Relief In Sight, Final Fantasy V Coming To iOS Tomorrow,

In a new report from mobile ad platform Millennial Media, the company compiles its data on mobile device share across its network for all of 2012, revealing that tablets in particular accounted for a rising percentage of impressions, with Android devices stepping up their game considerably. The Kindle Fire and Samsung tablets were the big share winners, helping Android slates grab a considerable 41 percent of the tablet mix, compared to 58 percent for Apple.

Millennial didn’t actually break out the overall values of tablet traffic in its 2011 report, but you can see from its February 2011 snapshot that the tablet/e-reader and other category had iOS at 80 percent share, with Android at just 17 percent and other at 3 percent. Android has clearly gained a lot of ground, then, and the main OEMs reaping the benefits of that growth are Samsung, which has 45 percent of the Android tablet share, and Amazon, which managed to acquire 26 percent thanks to the release of the second-generation Kindle Fire line, representing over 500 percent growth from its share in 2011.

Smartphone share also grew during the year, up from 68 percent to 75 percent, with non-phone connected devices (including tablets) also growing considerably as well, from 15 to 25 percent. The feature phone category gave up tons of ground, going from 17 percent to 5 percent share. Overall OS mix, despite Android’s tablet gains, actually didn’t shift all that much, with Android gaining one percentage point overall in 2012 versus 2011, and iOS losing one. BlackBerry remained steady in third, and Windows Phone gained a single percentage point.

Millennial notes that Android continues to take up more places in the top 20 mobile phones list on its platform, while Apple continues to be the market leader with its devices in each respective category, generating an outsized helping of traffic share from just a few core devices. The iPhone ranks number one among mobile phones, growing its share from 14.67 percent in 2011 to 15.59 percent in 2012. Samsung took over the number two spot from BlackBerry with its Galaxy S line, with 4.24 percent of impressions for 2012, growing 182 percent year-over-year.

The iPad mini was among Apple’s strongest performers, growing its share of impressions at an average daily rate of 28 percent within just weeks of its initial launch. Millennial says that’s a new best for the 7-inch tablet category, eclipsing the rapid 19 percent daily average established by the original Kindle Fire during its launch back in 2011. Overall, the picture that’s shaping up looks like it will see smartphone share start to even out as they eclipse feature phones entirely, with tablets making up an increasingly important piece of the pie, if the trends Millennial is seeing continue.

Samsung may dominate Apple in smartphone market share, but the opposite is true for tablets. Third quarter figures from IDC suggest the tablet market grew by 6.7 percent during those three months, and 49.5 percent since the same period last year. Apple was responsible for over half of the 27.8 million shipments worldwide, but lost a significant amount of market share, dropping to 50.4 percent from 65.5 percent in the second quarter. IDC attributes this to consumers holding off for the iPad mini, but expects some of these procrastinators will choose Android tablets due to the relatively high entry price of $329 for the mini. Samsung was second on the leaderboard, shipping over five million tablets and increasing its market share to 18.4 percent, mainly driven by Galaxy Tab and Note 10.1 sales. Amazon and ASUS also had a solid quarter thanks to the Kindle Fires and Nexus 7, respectively, shipping around 2.5 million tablets a piece. Lenovo’s presence in China meant it closed out the top five, with modest growth from the same period last year. Apple may still be the biggest player in the tablet market thanks to the iPad brand, but with the significant decline in market share this quarter, it seems IDC’s predictions might slowly be coming true.

Filed under: Tablets, Apple, Samsung, ASUS, Amazon, Lenovo

IDC: tablet shipments up 6.7 percent in Q3 2012, Apple’s market share drops to 50.4 percent originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 05 Nov 2012 03:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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IDC’s third quarter figures are in, complete with a few unexpected shake-ups. The entire cellphone market grew 2.4% over the same time last year, but smartphones drove the majority of that, showing growth of 45.3% and beating the analysts’ expectations. Of the 179.7 million smartphones shipped, Samsung and Apple devices accounted for almost half of them, with the companies retaining their number one and two positions in the market, respectively. IDC notes that iPhone shipments didn’t increase, but this is somewhat expected given the latest iteration was released only a short time before the end of the quarter. What we find particularly interesting is that Nokia was ousted from the top five smartphone players and replaced by RIM. Whether Nokia’s upcoming Windows Phone 8 devices will put it back in contention remains to be seen, as does the effect BB10 and RIM’s new handsets will have on the market. ZTE finished fourth in the list thanks to increased sales in North America, with HTC rounding up the top five vendors with continued uptake of its power devices. With a bunch of new handsets coming to the table and the holiday season fast approaching, look out for even more surprises in the fourth quarter numbers, due early next year.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Apple, Samsung, HTC, Nokia, RIM

IDC: Samsung and Apple still kings of the smartphone market, Nokia loses top five spot to RIM originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 26 Oct 2012 03:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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