Smartphone sales across the world have risen 49% in the first quarter of 2010 with impressive figures coming from both Apple and Google. Gartner's research reveals that 54.3 million smartphones were sold in the first three months of this year contributing to a 17% rise of all mobile phone sales. The high figures help make the annual smartphone sales the strongest since 2006.
Google's Android operating system has seen success in the past year going from a 1.6% share of the smartphone market in the first quarter of 2009 to taking 9.6% of the market for the first quarter of 2010. This has allowed Android to rise to the number four spot for smartphone operating systems overtaking Microsoft's Windows Mobile for the first time.
Apple also had cause for celebration due to a raise of almost 5% to a 15.4% market share compared to the same quarter last year. The two companies were however the only OS makers who managed to increase their market share for the quarter.
This sparked a warning for competitors in the crowded smartphone market from Gartner principal research analyst Roberta Cozza. "Just adding a qwerty keyboard will not make a device fit the communication's habits of today's various consumer segments."
Nokia's Symbian OS retained its number one spot with 44.3% of the market, however this is is down 4.5% from last year. RIM's Blackberry market share was also down 1.2% to 19.4% but overall sales for the top four competitors were up for year-over-year figures.
The first quarter saw smartphone sales stand at 17.3% of all mobile phone sales for 2010, a rise from 13.6% for the same period last year.
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