In six short years Android has become the dominant smartphone, tablet and e-reader operating system of choice. Worldwide market share has just reached 86.2% in the second quarter of 2016.
Global sales of smartphones to end users totaled 344 million units in the second quarter of 2016, a 4.3% increase over the same period in 2015, according to Gartner. Overall sales of mobile phones contracted by 0.5% with only five vendors from the top 10 showing growth. Among them were four Chinese manufacturers such as Huawei, Oppo, Xiaomi and South Korea’s Samsung.
iOS and Android achieving a 99% duopoly in the smartphone market is remarkable given that Symbian and BlackBerry operating systems were industry leaders just six years ago. Symbian was used by several major mobile phone vendors, including Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, and Sony Ericsson.
In the last calendar year more companies are embracing Android. Blackberry scrapped their BB10 OS and released the Priv, and recently launched the DTEK. Microsoft has double downed on Android, porting over all of their flagship Office apps.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
