• NextWeb, Thursday, April 7, 2011 12 PM

As devices using Android continue to lower in price, Google's mobile operating system will power 49% of the world's smartphones in 2012. So says a new report from Gartner, which suggests smartphone sales will near 500 million units in 2011 -- a 57.7% increase from 2010, with sales of open OS devices accounting for a quarter of all mobile handset sales during that period.

"Smartphone growth is expected to rise, helped by price reductions from competing manufacturers," notes The Next Web. "By 2015, two thirds of all open OS devices will have an average selling price of $300 or less, ensuring Android shipment volumes remain high for mid to low-cost smartphones, driven by orders by consumers in emerging markets." Open OS devices include BlackBerry OS, iOS, Symbian, Android, Windows Phone -- or any platform with a development SDK and APIs -- and Gartner predicts that sales of such handsets could surpass 1 billion units by 2015, accounting for 47% of the total mobile device market.

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