Every quarter, IDC puts out figures that represent worldwide shipments of smartphones by operating system and for Q2 2014, Android and iOS continued to dominate at the expense of Windows Phone, Blackberry and others. The firm said that smartphone shipments passed 300 millions for the second quarter to 301.3 million smartphones which is up 25.3% from the prior year.
The growth in shipments only benefited Android and iOS who now command 96% of the market with wth Android shipping 255.3 million units and iOS at 35.2 million. It"s quite clear that Android is the dominant smartphone platform in the world as it now owns 84.7% of the market which is impressive by any measurement standard.
For Windows Phone fans, the news is not nearly as good. IDC said that market share for Windows Phone dropped from 3.4% last year to 2.5% this year with 8.2 million units being shipped last year and only 7.4 million units being shipped this year.
Blackberry continued its free-fall from relevance with -78% growth this quarter with 1.9 million units shipped versus 2.9 million for the same period last year.
Android is clearly the platform to beat for all vendors as they have the lion"s share of the market but will Apple be able to claw anything back with the iPhone 6? Windows Phone also has a few new devices coming out over the coming months that could help to boost shipments too but for now, Android is so far out in front, it may be hard for anyone to catch it.
Source: IDC