Android Now On Majority Of New Mobile Phones Sold Worldwide

A new estimate of the worldwide mobile market shows Android phones represented more than half of all new mobile phones sold in the third quarter of 2011. Market tracking firm Gartner reports that more than 60 million Android phones were sold worldwide between July and September, making up 52.5 percent of the total new phone market. That's more than double the 25.3 percent share Google's mobile OS enjoyed the year before, and up from a 43.4 percent share in the second quarter of 2011. Android's growth comes primarily at the expense of Symbian phones, which now represent only 16.9 percent of new phone sales, down from 36.3 percent last year. Apple's iPhone makes up 15 percent of all mobile phone sales, down slightly from 16.6 percent in 2010. Research in Motion's Blackberry OS took up 11 percent of new mobile phone sales, while Microsoft's Windows Phone platform continued to languish at only 1.5 percent of the market. These numbers only represent new phone sales, not overall usage across mobile phone owners. A recent ComScore report estimated smartphones as a whole made up only 37 percent of cell phones being used in the U.S. "Android benefited from more mass-market offerings, a weaker competitive environment and the lack of exciting new products on alternative operating systems such as Windows Phone 7 and RIM," Gartner research analyst Roberta Cozza said.