Android’s Global Market Share Grows to 87.5%; Windows Tablets Grow in Shipments

Android has dominated the mobile market for a while now but the latest reports from independent researchers show it has reached yet another milestone.

For the third quarter of 2016, a report from Strategy Analytics says that Android as an OS was able to amass 87.5% of the total smartphone market. Competition from BlackBerry OS, Windows Mobile and Tizen collectively make up 0.3% of the market. Then we have Apple's iOS sitting at just 12.1% of the global market share for smartphones, which is down from 13.6% compared to the year before.

It's unlikely that Apple is worried about this right now though since they make more profit selling smartphones than any other company in the business. The Android space is getting more crowded each passing year, and it's becoming difficult for some to even make a profit. Some OEMs have resorted to lowering prices in order to compete, but this will likely cause a number of them to go out of business if they're unable to make a profit from their venture.

That should not have a negative impact on Android as a whole though, since other companies can jump in and fill that gap if something like that happened.

While Android smartphone shipments are up, Android tablets are actually down for the third quarter of this year. Another report from Strategy Analytics tells us the Android tablet market share dropped by 17% last quarter and Apple tablets also saw a decline of 6%. This brings Android's tablet market share down to 65% while iOS market share is sitting at 20% for the quarter for the tablet market.

With these two platforms dropping so much in the tablet space, it may be surprising to learn that it was Microsoft's Windows platform that was able to grow tablet shipments an entire 25% compared to the third quarter of last year. Since the debut of the Surface RT in 2012, Microsoft has been able to steadily grow their 2-in-1 tablet presence each and every year, bringing their market share to 16%. While still behind Apple and Android tablets, Windows tablets are the only one increasing in shipments.

Source 1: CNBC | Source 2: Softpedia

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