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Data: Mobile (Android) Taking Over World

  • Gartner, Tuesday, November 15, 2011 2:27 PM

Worldwide, sales of mobile devices hit 440.5 million units in the third quarter of the year, according to fresh data from Gartner. All told, that represented a 5.6% increase year-over-year. In what will be music to Google’s ears, more than 50% of all smartphones bought by consumers in the third quarter were built on the Android OS. What’s more, non-smartphone devices also performed well, according to Gartner, as they were driven by demand in emerging markets for low-cost devices from white-box manufacturers, as well as for dual-subscriber identity module devices.

Bigger picture, "Our forecast for the end of the year remains broadly in line at a worldwide level as regions such as Asia/Pacific and the Middle East and Africa make up for weaker performance in the Western European market," said Annette Zimmermann, principal analyst at Gartner based in Munich. Meanwhile, smartphone sales to end users reached 115 million units in the third quarter of 2011 -- up 42% from the third quarter of 2010. Sequentially, smartphone sales slowed to 7% growth from the second quarter of 2011 to the third quarter of 2011. Smartphone sales accounted for 26% of all mobile phone sales, growing only marginally from 25 percent in the previous quarter.

 

 

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