The Android mobile platform has gained considerable popularity in an amazingly short span of time. In the last quarter alone, around 32.9 million Android handsets were sold globally, taking over longtime champion Nokia (with 31m) for the title of most popular smartphone OS maker in the world. More on that, after the break.
Yes, it is true that Nokia makes its own handsets, but being finicky aside, it is a major thing that a company with a phenomenal market share such as Nokia can be taken over by something that is relatively new in the market. It should however be kept in mind that these numbers don’t include tablets. Sales of Android tablets are said to pick up as well, when Android 3.0 or Honeycomb, which happens to be optimized specially for tablet, is rolled out later this year.
The battle to clinch the top spot as the No.1 tech-savvy smartphone maker is on between Google, RIM, and Apple, and from the looks of the market, it can easily be said that this no piece of cake for any of these companies. The good news for Google is that unlike its opponents in the $200-phone, $100-plan range, Android is ripe for spreading to the feature-phone market where it easily overtake the less endowed, metaphorically speaking, phones from Samsung and Sony Ericsson while catering to a huge segment of budget restrained market.
Apart from this, Android is seen to be presenting a constant challenge to the iPhone as well, however considering the fact that Verizon iPhone 4 is due next week, the sales could further boost up. RIM is also feeling the heat; however it isn’t appealing to most of the younger generation, considering the fact that BlackBerry smartphones are thought largely as business oriented devices.
Google and Apple have already taken much of Nokia’s market share and it is bound to come under more pressure as everyday, scores of new users jump on the Android and iOS bandwagon.
Via Techcrunch.
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