Says Google OS took a 25.5% global smartphone market share in Q3.
20.5 million Android handsets were sold in the third quarter of this year, giving Google a 25.5% global smartphone market share, according to Gartner's latest research.
That's up from a mere 3.5% in Q3 2009, showing the stunning growth of Google's platform.
It's not yet the largest smartphone OS in the world in terms of new unit sales, though. That honour falls to Symbian, with its 29.5 million units sold in Q3.
However, Symbian's market share has fallen from 44.6% to 36.6% year-on-year according to Gartner.
iOS held relatively steady in third place with a 16.7% market share in Q3, down from 17.1% in Q3 2009. Gartner pegs iOS sales to end users of just under 13.5 million - as opposed to Apple's official figure of 14.1 million.
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BlackBerry took a 14.8% global smartphone market share in Q3 says Gartner, with 11.9 million sales. Its market share has fallen from 20.7% in Q3 2009.
It's worth stating that both Symbian and BlackBerry recorded decent year-on-year growth in terms of actual unit sales - it's just that this growth was outpaced by Android and iOS.
Windows Mobile slumped from a global market share of 7.9% in Q3 2009 to 2.8% in Q3 2010, with unit sales falling from 3.3 million to 2.2 million.
Gartner has more figures, claiming that Android handsets accounted for 75-80% of Verizon Wireless' total smartphone sales in Q3 this year.
The stakes are high for the various platform owners. "Any platform that fails to innovate quickly — either through a vibrant multi-player ecosystem or clear vision of a single controlling entity — will lose developers, manufacturers, potential partners and ultimately users," says Gartner's Roberta Cozza.
More generally, Gartner says global mobile phone sales were up 35% year-on-year to 417 million units in Q3, with smartphone sales up 96% to 80.5 million units - 19.3% of total sales.
The company broke mobile sales down by manufacturer too, with Nokia seeing its market share fall from 36.7% to 28.2% year-on-year, but still some way ahead of second-placed Samsung (17.2%).
Behind them came LG (6.6%), Apple (3.2%), RIM (2.9%), Sony Ericsson (2.5%), Motorola (2.1%) and HTC (1.6%).
