Move over, Symbian. A new Gartner study finds that Android will take over as the most popular smartphone mobile operating system worldwide by year's end, and capture nearly half of the smartphone OS market in 2012.
As Android's piece of the pie grows, Symbian will lose its mobile dominance. Symbian's share will shrink from 37.6 percent in 2010 to 19.2 percent by the end of 2011, while Android's share will grow from 22.7 percent last year to 38.5 percent this year, Garnter said. Android will continue to gain momentum, accounting for nearly half of the market by 2012. By contrast, Symbian will continue to wind down, grabbing just 5.2 percent of the mobile space in that same year.
The demise of Symbian could bode well for Microsoft's Windows Phone 7, which Gartner said could be the third place platform by 2013, thanks to its deal with Nokia. Gartner predicted Apple's iOS will maintain the number two spot through 2014, but it will peak in 2011 with 19.4 percent. After that, Gartner sees iOS declining slightly to 18.9 percent in 2012, due to its unchanging pricing strategy. RIM will see some losses, too, decreasing its share from 16 percent last year to 13.4 percent in 2011.
Despite losses for some companies, Gartner predicted that the overall smartphone market will grow as handset prices drop.
"By 2015, 67 percent of all open OS devices will have an average selling price of $300 or below, proving that smartphones have finally truly democratized," said Gartner analyst Roberta Cross.
Android fragmentation has been in the news again lately, prompting Andy Rubin, Google's vice president of engineering, to pen a Wednesday blog post in which he defended Android and insisted that the company remains committed to developing an open platform.