If you are a smartphone manufacturer trying to make a dent in the mobile wars and are not building a device running iOS or Android, you are out of luck. According to Boston-based research firm Strategy Analytics, 92% of all smartphones shipped in the last quarter of 2012 ran either Apple or Google’s mobile operating systems.
Overall, smartphone growth for the quarter grew 38% annually between Q4 2011 and Q4 2012 from 157 million units to 217 million. For the year, Strategy Analytics believes that 700.1 million smartphones were shipped in 2012, well ahead of the 490.5 million shipped in 2011.
Growth rates for the smartphone market are slowing. Granted, growth is still in the double digits, but global ship growth slowed from 64% in 2011 to 43% in 2012, according to Strategy Analytics senior analyst Neil Shah in a release.
On a global basis, Android is winning the smartphone wars. In Q4, it took 70.1% of all smartphone shipments. Apple’s iOS was second with 22%. That left 7.9% to all other competitors, notably Microsoft’s Windows Phone and Research In Motion’s BlackBerry.
For the entirety of 2012, Android held 68.4% of all smartphone shipments. Apple held at nearly one-in-five (19.4%) while the rest of the market shared 12.2% of all shipments.
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