New IDC numbers are showing (unsurprisingly) that Android and iOS are continuing to dominate the market, with Windows Phone gaining a larger portion of the market share as well.
Google’s Android OS climbed from 49.2 percent of the smartphone space in 2011 to 68.8 percent in 2012. Many of those customers came as a result of the misfortunes of other operating systems such as BlackBerry and the now-defunct Symbian. The OS did, however, lose 5 percent marketshare in the fourth quarter, dropping from 75 percent to 70.1 percent. The iPhone 5 launch helped Apple gain some ground.
Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform made market-beating progress in 4Q12 and 2012, increasing to 2.5 percent. Nokia amassed 76.0% of all Windows Phone smartphone shipments with HTC and Samsung bringing up the rear. These numbers are also not including a full quarter of sales for the new Windows Phone 8 devices, which are said to have increased sales by a large margin.
It will definitely be interesting to see how these numbers change with a full quarter of both WP8 and BB10 coming. Android and iOS are likely to dominate for quite some time, but we could see their numbers dwindle a bit as new entrants in the smartphone race step foot off the starting line.