In the last three months of 2011, Android saw its market share in smartphones increase to over 50%. Figures from Gartner reveal that in quarter four of 2011 saw sales in smartphones increase by a huge amount with 149 million units, which represented a 47.3% increase from quarter four of 2010.
The number of sales has seen Android's market share of smartphones increase to 50.9%, which is up from 30.5% in Q4 2010. Apple also increased their share in the market as it had 23.8%, up from 15.8% in Q4 2010.
Nokia’s Symbian operating system saw a decline in its market share as it is now in third place with 11.7%. Despite the decline in their market share, Garter states that Nokia is still the number one seller of mobile devices in the world as it entry level handsets are very popular in Asia and other emerging countries.
Garter also reports that manufacturers such as ZTE and Huawei are staking their claim in the mid to entry level smartphone market. Both companies were the fastest growing after Apple in quarter four of 2011. ZTE is fifth in the list of mobile device vendors after it shipped 56 million handsets in 2011.
The emergence of these new companies has seen Android take the overall market share in smartphones. Gartner also went to claim that Android will continue to strengthen their market share throughout 2012.