Google-owned Android mobile platform dominated the global smartphone market share by powering 79 percent devices while its biggest rival Apple iOS saw a significant dip in 2013.
Stepping into the second month of 2014, annual reports of 2013 for smartphone sales from different companies are emerging. The latest report by Strategy Analytics suggests 2013 was the year for Android's supremacy. Google's popular mobile OS dominated the smartphone sector with 79 percent in 2013, which means 781.2 million smartphones shipped globally ran Android, according to the latest Strategy Analytics estimates.
Neil Mawston, Executive Director at Strategy Analytics, said that Android-powered smartphones ruled out its competing rivals, including Apple and Microsoft. For every iOS and Windows Phone shipped in 2013, Android shipped four units of its own. Despite the vast lead over both mobile operating systems, Android growth rate slowed to 62 percent in 2013, which is the platform's lowest ever recorded. Mawston predicts that Android dominance will continue to decline throughout 2014, as rivals like Microsoft or Firefox are working their way up in the highly competitive market.
Strategy Analytics predicts that the total shipments of smartphones in 2013 was less than a billion, about 990 million, whereas an earlier report from IDC suggested the global smartphone shipments set out a new record with over 1 billion units shipped throughout 2013.
As for Apple, the global market share slipped from 19.4 percent in 2012 to 15.5 percent in 2013. But Microsoft's Windows Phone OS secured a third position with 3.6 percent share, up from 2.7 per cent a year earlier.
The battle for supremacy in the mobile OS sector continues to grow as new entries like Tizen are speculated to hit the market this year.
Strategy Analytics said global sales rose 41 percent last year to a total of 990 million smartphone units.
