Android is rocking the global smartphone market, owning 85 percent of marketshare, according to new Strategy Analytic research, which reports worldwide smartphone shipments hit 295 million units in the second quarter of 2014.
"Like the PC market, Android is on the verge of turning smartphone platforms into a one-horse race. Its low-cost services and user-friendly software remain wildly attractive to hardware makers, operators and consumers worldwide," said Neil Mawston, executive director at Strategy Analytics, in a release on the study. "Rival OS vendors are going to have to do something revolutionary to overturn Android's huge lead in smartphone shipments."
Those rival vendors include Apple, Windows Phone and BlackBerry.
According to the research firm global smartphone shipments spiked 27 percent annually from 233.0 million units in the second quarter of 2013.
"We estimate worldwide smartphone growth has halved during the past year, from 49 percent a year ago to 27 percent today. Global smartphone growth in the current quarter is at its lowest level for five years, and there are wide variations by region. For example, Africa and Asia are booming, while North America and Europe are maturing," states Linda Sui, director at Strategy Analytics.
The news comes as Microsoft is scurrying to get caught up in the smartphone race which had been led by Apple's iOS and iPhone for years and get at least on par with Samsung given it's strenuous push in the past year to break Apple's hold in the market.
"Android's gain came at the expense of every major rival platform," notes Woody Oh, director at Strategy Analytics. The report notes that BlackBerry, which has been struggling mightily for over three years to re-gain its prominence in the enterprise as a smartphone leader, saw it's global share go from 2 percent to one percent in the past year. The research firm attributes the dip to what it calls a weak lineup of BlackBerry 10 devices.
The report states Apple's iOS drop a point of share to Android wasdue to not having a deep product portfolio when it comes to low-end handsets.
Microsoft Windows Phone saw its marketshare decline from 4 percent in the second quarter of 2013 to just 3 percent this year, second quarter.
Whether the market scenario changes much in the next year is tied to consumer response to Apple's impending iPhone 6 and the Mozilla's Foundation's push to offer ultra-cheap smartphones running on Firefox OS.
