Android On Fire — Others Not So Much

The Q1 smartphone sales figures that were released yesterday by Gartner show that Android has surged and now leading all other smartphone operating systems. These numbers are Q1 sales figures and not reflective of overall market share but the show the direction the overall market is going.

Gartner said “Windows Phone saw only modest sales that reached 1.6 million units in the first quarter of 2011.” It’s not clear what the 3.6 million units attributed to Microsoft (in the chart) reflects vs. the 1.6 million sold in the quote. It could be older versions of Windows Mobile still being sold beside Windows Phones (though it’s hard to believe people are still buying the older Microsoft OS).

Gartner’s belief, which is open to debate, is that Windows Phones will dramatically grow share once the Nokia-Windows handsets hit the market (later this year).

Below are similar numbers from IDC released in April, which focus on hardware OEMs (including feature phones) more than operating systems:

StatCounter reflects current global smartphone OS market share in the following way:

Finally here’s comScore’s most recent US data on smartphone OS:

All the evidence above shows that Android is surging, while the iPhone is holding its own (and is the single leading smartphone). All other operating systems are struggling or in decline.

As a matter of purely anecdotal observation, I was just in London and didn’t observe many Android handsets. The iPhone was much more prevalent.