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Smartphones are now a 95% Android-iOS global duopoly w/ Android closing in on 80% by itself

IDC-Q4-2013-smartphones-02

Research firm IDC is out today with its latest report on the worldwide smartphone market highlighting shipments and marketshare by operating system for last quarter and all of 2013. Together Android and iOS made up around 95.7% of all smartphone shipments in the last quarter of 2013 (up from 91.2% in the year ago quarter), but the real story is how much Android has grown compared to iOS. As of last quarter, Android made up almost 80% of that 95.7% and shipped close to 800 million of the billion smartphones shipped during 2013.

iOS posted the lowest positive growth for both the quarter (6.7%) and for the year (12.9%), underperforming the overall market in both instances. Although it remains wildly popular in the smartphone market, Apple has been criticized for not offering a new low-cost iPhone nor a large screen iPhone in 2013 to compete with other OEMs. IDC believes the company will release a large-screen version in 2014, but will not altogether abandon the smaller 4″ screen version of previous models.

Compare Apple’s 6% growth and 17.6% percent of the market last quarter to a 40% year-over-year change for Android and 78.1% of the market in Q413 (up from 70% last year). Of course much of that growth, as you can see in IDC’s chart above, comes at the expense of BlackBerry and the “Others” category, while Windows Phone grew to 3.0% of the market up from 2.6% last year.

For the quarter, IDC says Android shipped 226.1 million units and a total of 793.6 million for the year. That compares to 51 million last quarter for Apple and 153.4 million for all of 2013.

IDC’s chart on the worldwide market for all of 2013 is below:

IDC-Q4-2013-smartphones-01

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Comments

  1. Tallest Skil - 10 years ago

    How pathetic to “have” 80% of the market and only 30% of the use.

  2. TJ (@tjskywasher) - 10 years ago

    I saw a statistic a short while ago that 70% of Android phones are ‘junk’ and cost less than $150. So factor in mid-range handsets to the remaining 30% and then how many high-end Android phones do you have that actually compete head to head with the iPhone? My guess is the iPhone has a higher market share when comparing like for like.

  3. robertvarga79 - 10 years ago

    I would LOVE to see a global satisfaction rate comparison chart!! There is how we would see things turning into a different story

  4. elder Signin - 10 years ago

    Latest info that I saw says iOS is making 80% of the world PROFIT and Samsung making about 28%. YES, its over 100% cause everyone else is losing money.

    So, samsung makes tons of phones and makes almost NO profit on them. Apple makes way less and not only do people use the heck out of them (highest internet use) but Apple makes the most PROFIT on them.

    Just saying.

    • elder Signin - 10 years ago

      PS, I would guess the author is just trolling cause they ONLY mention market share and not profit. If someone goes out of their way not to give both sides, then that would be either trolling or just not knowing… either way is bad.

  5. ashtraywasp - 10 years ago

    Always very important to remember that shipments do not equal sales.

    Microsoft bragged about shipping so many million Xbox Ones this holiday season, before it leaked that their sales were actually a million less than their amount shipped. Effectively there were a million Xboxes left on the shelf. The same thing happened with Windows 8. OEMs went into overdriving with the belief that Windows 8 was going to be the second coming they’d all been waiting for. Windows PC shipments that period were in the bajillions, sales barely existent.

    Always remember that. That’s a reason why you see other published statistics showing the market share as close to equal, then the hyper-confusing flip flop to Android with a massive lead.

  6. jweaber - 10 years ago

    It sure feels like we are reliving history here. But thankfully it is different this time…

  7. herb02135go - 10 years ago

    Wow, such interesting spin here in the comments. It’s almost like these people work for Apple.
    “Samsung makes no profit.” Really?

    The fact is, Samsung is a very good option to iPhone. Samsung was first to enlarge its screen which is a big factor and now Apple is doing the same. I like the ability to customize mine more so than I could my iPhone.
    I have used both. I now use a Samsung phone for the reasons I’ve mentioned.
    This doesn’t mean the iPhone is bad, just that it has competition, which is good for consumers.

    Apple needs to innovate – and making a gold-plated case is not innovation.

    • Kenneth R Leitch - 10 years ago

      Bingo! A 3″ in screen was cutting edge in 2007. Remember, iOS started life with no multitasking, no notifications, etc. Android has been great to spur innovation. Google saw the opening that Microsoft and Blackberry left and ran away with it. I’m loving my Samsung Galaxy Note 3.

  8. E! Man (@ENewsMan) - 10 years ago

    Without even seeing these numbers, Android’s growing market share is obvious to developers who are starting to make as much $$ on Android as they do iOS, if not more. Ad networks for Android like Airpush and others that are very Android savvy like Millennial Media are giving developers the tools to make some serious bank on this massive exposure to the global mobile population. So, speaking as a developer, this big ass market share is alight by me! lol

Author

Avatar for Jordan Kahn Jordan Kahn

Jordan writes about all things Apple as Senior Editor of 9to5Mac, & contributes to 9to5Google, 9to5Toys, & Electrek.co. He also co-authors 9to5Mac’s Logic Pros series.