Android World's No. 1 Smartphone Platform

Passes Symbian; iPhone at No. 3

By Matt Cantor, Newser Staff

Posted Jan 31, 2011 2:23 PM CST

Copied

Android World's No. 1 Smartphone Platform — Shown is the Droid Incredible cell phone by HTC in San Francisco, which uses Google's Android operating software. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

Google’s Android is now the world’s most popular smartphone platform, having edged past Nokia’s Symbian in the fourth quarter of 2010. Vendors shipped 33.3 million Android-based phones that quarter, beating Symbian’s 31 million, a report out today finds. That’s good news for Android phone vendors LG and Acer, who saw sales volume boosts of 4,127% and 709% from Q4 of 2009—and for Samsung and HTC, who together shipped nearly 45% of all Android phones in the period, reports CNET.

In third place, iPhone sales hit twice their fourth-quarter 2009 volume, but Apple's market share dropped from 16.3% to 16%. Research in Motion, the company behind BlackBerry, also saw shipments climb, but its market share dipped from 20% to 14.4%. And Microsoft's market share sank from 7.2% to 3.1% as Windows Mobile phone sales dropped from 3.9 million to 3.1 million.
(Read more smartphones stories.)