Android, iOS Devices See Record Shipments

A whopping 85 percent of smartphones shipped in the second quarter were powered by Android and iOS, breaking the mobile operating systems' previous record.

According to Wednesday data from IDC, Android took a commanding lead with more than 68 percent of market share for all smartphones shipped during the quarter.

"Android continues to fire on all cylinders," Ramon Llamas, a senior research analyst with IDC, said in a statement.

Llamas chalked Google's win up to the various flagship devices released on Android, as well as reasonable prices and user experience, which he said "boosted Android smartphones' utility far beyond simple telephony."

IDC traced Google's success directly to Samsung, which accounted for 44 percent of all Android phones shipped during the last quarter, which was more than the next seven Android vendors' volumes combined, IDC said.

Apple's iOS platform held its own, posting double-digit growth, though its 16.9 percent share was still not enough to push it to the top of the market. While demand for the iPhone 4S has cooled off, the expected September release of the newest iPhone will likely boost Cupertino's share.

"The mobile OS market is now unquestionably a two-horse race due to the dominance of Android and iOS," Kevin Restivo, a senior research analyst at IDC, said in a statement. "With much of the world's mobile phone user base still operating feature phones, the smartphone OS market share battle is far from over."

Restivo forecasted that there is still room for some mobile OS competitors to gain share, though it would prove increasingly difficult as smartphone penetration increases.

BlackBerry and Symbian, former leaders in the smartphone market, watched their market shares fall below 5 percent, to 4.8 percent and 4.4 percent, respectively.

Windows Mobile and Windows Phone 7 nabbed 3.5 percent of the market and is "closing in on the third spot," IDC said, but is "still a distant competitor to Android and iOS."

"Microsoft will need to generate additional momentum from Windows Phone 8 devices, which will be introduced this fall, if it is to narrow the share gap further between itself and the three mobile OS leaders," according to IDC.

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