The Nokia Symbian platform has been overtaken by Google Android as the best selling smartphone operating system.
Research by Canalys shows that Android was installed on 32.9m smartphones in the last 3 months of 2010 against 31m Symbian units.
Marketshare for Android was up from 8.7% in 2009 to 33% in 2010, while over the same period Microsoft Mobile OS fell from 7.2% to 3.1%.
Canalys say the market will remain highly competitive with suppliers looking to use new technology, such as dual-core processors, NFC and 3D displays to differentiate their products.
LG, Samsung, Acer and HTC and similar suppliers saw sales of Android based devices grow dramatically. LG’s sales grew 4,127% in 2010 followed by Samsung with 1,474% annual growth. Samsung and HTC made up around 45% of Android based smartphone sales.
Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) remained the largest smartphone market region with 38.8 million of the total 101.2 million smartphones sold globally – and here Nokia kept its lead.
Worldwide smartphone market, market share Q4 2010, Q4 2009
| OS supplier | Q4 2010 shipments (millions) | % share | Q4 2009 shipments (millions) | % share | Growth Q410/Q409 (%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 33.3 | 32.9 | 4.7 | 8.7 | 615 | |
| Nokia | 31 | 30.6 | 23.9 | 44.4 | 30 |
| Apple | 16.2 | 16 | 8.7 | 16.3 | 85.9 |
| RIM | 14.6 | 14.4 | 10.7 | 20 | 36 |
| Microsoft | 3.1 | 3.1 | 3.9 | 7.2 | -20.30% |
| Others | 3 | 2.9 | 1.8 | 3.4 | 64.8 |
| Total | 101.2 | 100 | 53.7 | 100 | 88.6 |
Source: Canalys estimates