ABI Research has released a new report that indicates the Android OS continues to gain market share with a year-to-year growth rate of 24%. Apple’s iOS continues to grow as well with a 17% growth over last year. But the OS with the biggest jump is Windows Phone with a improvement of 119%.
The new study with the catchy title ‘Q1 2014 Smartphone OS Results: Android Dominates High Growth Developing Markets’ has some interesting (if not terribly surprising) findings.
The report indicates that, as expected, the Android OS is still the dominate player. “Android once again dominated the Q1 2014 shipment numbers for smartphone advanced operating systems with 80% market share (including AOSP) of just under 300 million smartphones shipped in Q1 2014.”
While Apple’s iOS did gain market share the ABI report was lukewarm about iOS. “Apple’s iOS also achieved steady progress with 17% year-on-year growth, but growth is undoubtedly flattening and the iPhone 5c has done little to boost sales volumes.”
Windows Phone, however, is gaining momentum. “Microsoft’s Windows Phone (essentially Nokia/Microsoft) continued its steady progress with 16% sequential growth and an increase of 1% in market share. “Microsoft Windows Phone is currently the only viable third ecosystem. BlackBerry has faded on all fronts (BlackBerry 10 and OS) and while Firefox remains a potential low-cost challenger, it has yet to make any significant impact,” added Spencer.”
One of the interesting findings in the report was that while many basic phones lost market share Android seems to be the one that is sucking them up.
“Interestingly, basic mobile phones lost 5% market share and Android picked up almost all of these users, suggesting Android is set to gain almost all of the billions of mobile subscribers still upgrading to smartphones. Certainly, Android looks set to completely dominate the high growth developing markets and increase its market share still further,” said Nick Spencer, senior practice director, mobile devices.
While the report doesn’t contain too many earth shattering revelations it’s still worth a quick look. You can find links to the report at the ABI Research press page here.
