In terms of market share, Windows Phone is growing, Android still dominates and Apple is slipping just a bit according to the latest numbers from the IDC research firm.
Windows Phone shipped 9.5 million devices last quarter — marking a year-over-year growth of 156 percent — and saw its market share grow from two percent in 2012 to 3.6 percent in the third quarter of 2013. It’s worth noting that Nokia accounted for 93.2 percent of Windows Phones shipped last quarter.
Though Microsoft still lags far behind the two mobile kingpins, it seems to have firmly implanted itself as the third OS (for those still counting, Blackberry now has 1.7 percent market share).
Android, meanwhile, had its market share grow past 80 percent for the first time ever last quarter, shipping 211.6 million devices. IDC credited Android’s success to “its broad and deep list of vendors, including four of the top five vendors worldwide.”
But it wasn’t great news for Apple, as the Cupertino company saw its global market share actually drop by 1.5 percent from last year. This comes despite Apple setting iPhone shipment records for the 5C and 5S devices a few weeks ago.
IDC noted that Apple’s dip in market share was “due to soft demand in the weeks leading up to the launch of iOS 7 smartphones.”
“Still, if the 9 million units sold during the last week of September is any indication of future adoption, iOS stands to reap another record quarter in terms of volumes, market share, and year-over-year growth,” IDC added.
Editor’s note: Headline has been changed to correct the reference to Windows market share growth.
