In the fierce battle between mobile operating systems, it seems that Google's Android is pulling away from Apple's iOS in the global market.
According to a research report from Strategy Analytics, Android dominated the third quarter as 87.5 percent of smartphones shipped in the period were powered by Google's mobile operating system, an increase compared with last year's third quarter when Android smartphones made up 84.1 percent of shipments.
Android Smartphone Shipments
The report stated that smartphone shipments reached 375.4 million units worldwide in the months of June to September, increasing 6 percent compared with 354.2 million units shipped in the corresponding quarter of last year. This represents the fastest growth rate of the industry for a year, as supported by emerging markets in Asia, the Middle East and Africa with relatively low smartphone penetration.
The growth of the smartphone industry comes along with the growth of Android, which acquired market share from all other rival operating systems.
In the third quarter, there were 328.6 million Android smartphones shipped, a 10.3 percent increase compared with the 298.0 million units sold in the third quarter of 2015. In comparison, iOS devices saw shipments decrease by 5.2 percent to 45.5 million units from 48.0 million units year over year, with smartphones powered by all other operating systems declining by a massive 84.1 percent to 1.3 million units in the third quarter compared with 8.2 million units in the same quarter last year.
iOS Market Share
The market share of iOS for the third quarter is down to 12.1 percent from 13.6 percent in the third quarter last year, while the market share of all other operating systems decreased from 2.3 percent to a miniscule 0.3 percent. The adoption of iOS remains at its lowest point since the middle of 2014.
According to Strategy Analytics director Woody Oh, the leadership of Android looks to be "unassailable" now, as its user-friendly software and low-cost services have remained attractive to both smartphone manufacturers and customers worldwide.
Oh pointed out several challenges that Google will face, including the increasing number of Android smartphones in the market, the low number of Android device manufacturers that are making profit and how the Google Pixel will directly compete with these companies that helped propel Android into dominance.
The Google Pixel comes with Android 7.1 Nougat, which is the latest version of the operating system. Older smartphones in the Nexus line of Google are said to be receiving the update to upgrade their operating system to Android 7.1 Nougat soon, though a specific release date has not yet been confirmed.
