Windows Phone dives into irrelevant-like-BlackBerry territory

BlackBerry and Microsoft have continued their tumble down the mobile operating system market share charts, clocking in at just 0.1 per cent and 0.6 per cent respectively.

Microsoft's fallen especially hard: analyst firm Gartner had it selling 8.2 million phones for 2015's second quarter, for 2.5 per cent market share. The current 0.6 per cent share means just 1.97m devices running Windows phone shipped last quarter. Blackberry could only muster 400,000 sales of kit running its own code.

Gartner's numbers analyse OS market share, unlike those from IDC and Canalys which focus on handset-makers. The first-mentioned firm's data is broadly similar with its rivals, finding Samsung out ahead in a quarterly market for 344.3 million phones. IDC counted 343m and Canalys committed to "over 330 million."

The G-men rank Samsung, Apple, Huawei, Oppo and Xiaomi as the planet's top five purveyors of smartphones. The combined sales of the last three vendors, all of which are Chinese, was about 54.6 million, behind Samsung's 76.7m but ahead of Apple's 44.4m. "Others" scored 158.5m sales. The Register imagines it won't be long before name brand Chinese vendors collectively conquer Samsung.

Android is utterly dominant in the operating system market, with 86.2 per cent share. Apple's iOS has 12.9 per cent and Windows is in third with its sliver of sales. Android's captured four points of market share in a year, roughly two apiece from Apple and Microsoft. Gartner reckons Android's rise and rise can be attributed to a growing range of premium handsets that give buyers a reason to look beyond Apple for posh kit. If Apple holds true to form it will issue invitations to the debut of its 2016 models in late August and then show them off a week or two later. ®

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Source: Windows Phone dives into irrelevant-like-BlackBerry territory