Smartphones continue to sell smartly, reaching an all-time high of 301.3 million in the second quarter alone.
As for share of the market by operating system, it's all Android and iOS, in that order. Coming in at a microscopic share is Microsoft, whose Windows Phone OS actually saw its diminutive share drop from 3.4 percent to 2.5 percent from same time last year.
That's not good for two reasons, well, probably more - it's not a good sign that when device sales are still soaring, that a prominent OS product actually loses share; and Microsoft has been paying ever more attention to promoting Windows Phone, with apparent little impact.
By the numbers; Android phones, from a flock of suppliers, grew by 33 percent in quarter two, for a total of 255.3 million devices shipped. That's also 84.7 percent of all smartphones regardless of OS.
Don't cry for the iPhone, though; their shipments jumped by 12.7 million, for a total of 35.2 million in the second quarter. But, Apple's market share dipped to 11.7 percent from 13 percent from same time last year. A 1.3 percent fall-off is not bad, in light of not much excitement coming from Apple in that period. During that same time frame, many new Android devices hit the shelves.
With new iPhones due in late third quarter, Apple's share should rise again through the end of the year. Then there's the cost factor; according to International Data Corporation (IDC), the average selling price of an Android smartphone in 2014 is $254; the iPhone averages a wallet-draining $657.
For those keeping score, that's 96.4 percent of the world's smartphone market divvyed up between Android and iOS devices. That means somebody's scrounging for those last few crumbs of market share, and the two most recognizable names are Windows Phone and BlackBerry.
"It's been an incredible upward slog for Windows Phone and other smaller operating systems in the market," said IDC analyst Melissa Chau in a statement. "Windows Phone has been around since 2010 but has yet to break the 5 percent share mark."
For Microsoft, growth of the Windows Phone market is partly due to the lack of partner developers at work on building applications on the platform. It's supply and demand - developers don't want to commit resources to a minor player. It's up to Microsoft to ratchet up demand for Windows Phone in order to get more developers on board.
With Microsoft's recent purchase of Nokia, the conversion of many Nokia smartphones to the Windows Phone OS, and the change in mission announced in Redmond which stressed the company's renewed focus on the mobile market, Microsoft appears to finally be getting serious about driving Windows Phone market share to new heights.
