Thanks to the release of new smartphones such as Motorola’s Droid X and Sprint’s HTC EVO 4 models, handsets running Google’s Android mobile operating system made huge strides in the second quarter.
As Enterprise Mobile Today reports, the latest Gartner data confirms the obvious: the smartphone market is enjoying unprecedented growth in the U.S. and abroad and a wave of new applications and devices ensures this trend won’t be coming to end anytime soon.
However, it’s clear this market will become more cutthroat for the foreseeable, a fact that should keep prices lower for consumers and drive application development on all mobile platforms.
“Launches of updated operating systems will help maintain strong growth in smartphones in the second half of 2010 and spur innovation,” Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi, said in the report. “But we believe market share in the OS space will consolidate around a few key OS providers that have the most support from CSPs and developers, and strong brand awareness with consumers and enterprise customers.”
Smartphones sales continue to increase at a break-neck pace, according to the latest data from Gartner, and makers of Android-based devices are the clear beneficiaries as this market starts to mature and sort itself out.
This maturity is reflected in both declining average selling prices and profit margins, two statistics that researchers say reflect the dog-eat-dog competition going on for the hearts and minds of consumers looking to do more than place a voice call with their handsets.
In the second quarter, more than 61.6 million smartphones were sold, a 50.5 percent increase from the year-ago quarter. The top four smartphone operating system vendors accounted for 91 percent of all smartphone sales, with Google’s (NASDAQ: GOOG) Android-based devices enjoying the biggest surge, exploding from just under 756,000 units sold last year to more than 10.6 million this time around.