Android and iOS dominate the smartphone market as global shipments top 300 million units in Q2

Himanshu Arora

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Android and iOS made up for 96.4 percent of all smartphone shipments in Q2 2014, up from 92.6 percent a year ago, according to market research firm IDC.

Android's market share stood at 84.7 percent, with vendors shipping a total of 255.3 million Android-based smartphones in the second quarter, up 33.3 percent year over year. This is largely due to Samsung, which accounted for 29.3 percent of all Android-powered shipments.

Top five smartphone operating systems, worldwide shipments and market share

Operating System 2Q14 Shipment Volume 2Q14 Market Share 2Q13 Shipment Volume 2Q13 Market Share Growth
Android 255.3 84.7% 191.5 79.6% 33.3%
iOS 35.2 11.7% 31.2 13.0% 12.7%
Windows Phone 7.4 2.5% 8.2 3.4% -9.4%
BlackBerry 1.5 0.5% 6.7 2.8% -78.0%
Others 1.9 0.6% 2.9 1.2% -32.2%
Total 301.3 100% 240.5 100% 25.3%

Meanwhile, despite a 12.7 percent jump in shipments, iOS' market share was down 1.3 percentage points year-on-year to 11.7 percent. However, the situation might change in the coming months, especially with the anticipated arrival of large-screen iPhones. While Android dominated the low end market (sub $200 devices), iOS dominated the higher end.

android ios google apple report windows phone idc blackberry smartphone shipments

Overall, vendors shipped a total of 301.3 million smartphones worldwide in the second quarter, crossing the 300 million unit mark for the first time in history. That's a 25.3 percent jump compared to the second quarter of 2013.

As for the other operating systems, Windows Phone slipped to 2.5 percent, down 0.9 points from 3.4 percent in Q2 2013, but compared to the previous quarter, it showed slight improvement. The numbers are expected to further improve during the second half of the year when numerous vendors including BLU, Micromax, Prestigio, Yezz, and more come on board.

On the other hand, BlackBerry volumes have rebounded slightly from the previous quarter, but remain 78.0% lower than shipment levels from a year ago.

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"While Android dominated the low end market (sub $200 devices), iOS dominated the higher end."

This is not put correctly. According to the graph, about 85% of iOS is High end devices and 20% of Android is High end. If you calculate right, 85% of 11.7 is 9.945% for iOS of global high en market and 20% of 84.6% is 16.94% for Android. How then does iOS dominate High end?

The sentence should rather read: "While Android handsets are predominantly mid to lower end, iOS is predominantly high end."

Can you see the error? Android dominates the high, mid and low end markets. Please check for these errors before some crazy fans misquote you.
 
Also by the way, it is sad to see Windows Phone struggling so much. I really would like that OS to give the market an proper alternative. Two OS' are not enough competition. I use Android and like Android, but already Android is becoming to strong.
 
You know what, I've been really too much of a gentleman. This is so misleading. If you want to write an article, have your facts straight. The way you present these facts, shows that you are biased towards Apple and you blatantly skewed your remarks to make it look like iOS is dominating the high end market. For somebody commenting it might be excusable, but not for somebody writing an article and getting paid for it. This is journalism at its worst.

I am willing to believe that have made a mistake, but this is a bad "mistake." You owe an apology to your readers for making such a gross error. And just maybe we might be real gentle people and forgive you.
 
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