Google and Apple powered 96.8% of smartphones sold last quarter

Android and Apple continue to dominate the smartphone market. According to the latest report by research firm Gartner, approximately 330 million smartphones were sold in Q2 2015, an increase over 13.5 per cent from the 290 million sold a year ago.

The vast majority of devices sold in the quarter ran Android. While market share does not correlate to profit – and we know the true story there – over 82 per cent of smartphones sold last quarter ran Android, a slight drop from a year ago. And while Android’s total numbers grew, from 243 million to 271 million, it was the operating system’s slowest quarter-over-quarter growth to date.

Apple’s iPhone continued to take small chunks of market share from its rivals last quarter, selling 48 million devices, an increase from 35 million a year earlier. iOS-based devices comprised 14.6 per cent market share, up 2.4 per cent from a year ago.

Android’s growth “was affected by the weak performance of China in the second quarter of 2015 and the strong performance in China of Apple, which has taken share from Android for the last three quarters,” according to Gartner. BlackBerry continued its slide from 0.7 per cent market share a year ago to only 0.3 per cent market share, representing a mere 1.1 million smartphones. Windows-based devices grew slightly in total volume to 8.2 million, but dropped in market share to 2.5 per cent from 2.8 per cent a year earlier.

From a manufacturer standpoint, Samsung continued its leadership in the space with 19.9 per cent market share of total phone sales in Q2, falling a worrying 2 per cent year over year. These numbers represent all phones sold, not just smartphones.

Apple took second spot with 10.8 per cent of the mobile market, an increase of 2.8 percent from the same period a year ago. Microsoft’s $7.5 billion inventory writedown was represented in the list, dropping from 43.8 million devices sold in Q2 2014 to 27.6 million this quarter.

[source] Gartner [/source]