Smartphone shipments hit the 1B mark for the first time (Credit: Josh Miller/CNET) For the first time ever, more than 1 billion smartphones were shipped worldwide in 2013. This is mostly thanks to Android. New data from research firm IDC shows that Android stayed strong throughout the year reaching a total of 793.6 million shipments -- this gave it 78.6 percent market share. While Apples iOS held a steady second place with 153.4 million shipments and 15.2 percent market share. Together the two operating systems accounted for 95.7 percent of all smartphone shipments in the fourth quarter of 2013, and 93.8 percent for the full year. Clearly, there was strong end-user demand for both Android and iOS products during the quarter and the year, IDC Mobile Phone team research manager Ramon Llamas said in a statement. What stands out are the different routes Android and Apple took to meet this demand. Android relied on its long list of OEM partners, a broad and deep collection of devices, and price points that appealed to nearly every market segment. Apples iOS, on the other hand, relied on nearly the opposite approach: a limited selection of Apple-only devices, whose prices trended higher than most. Looking at th... [Read more] February 13, 2014 at 04:39AM By Samy Mohab
Posted on: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 03:05:31 +0000
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