Samsung and its archrival Apple together account for 46.5 percent share of the global smartphone market, while Research in Motion comes in third, followed by HTC. Nokia, the former world leader in mobile phones, now comes in seventh in this list. Samsung and Google share a symbiotic relation as Android also continued to maintain its lead as the world’s most popular smartphone OS even in the third quarter. Almost 72 percent of the smartphones run on Android, while Apple’s iOS accounts for 13.9 percent. BlackBerry OS continues to be in the third spot, although its share fell from 11 percent to just about 5.3 percent in comparison with last year. Microsoft’s Windows Phone OS saw a slight growth, up from 1.5 percent to 2.4 percent of the share, and came in fourth. While Android and Apple continue to maintain the lead, we can expect to see stiff competition for the third position between the recently launched Windows Phone 8 and the upcoming BlackBerry 10. While the share of smartphones continues to grow, the demand for “feature phones” that don’t have app capabilities and basic cell phones is declining. Samsung emerged as the leader in overall mobile phone sales, accounting for 22.9 percent of the share in the third quarter. Nokia came in second, accounting for 19.2 percent of the overall share, while Apple and ZTE accounted for 5.5 percent and 3.3 percent of the share. Huawei followed up, accounting for 2.8 percent of the overall mobile phone market.
