Market share may not mean everything, but it certainly means a lot when it becomes as big as Android’s. Gartner this week confirmed a recent report from IDC showing that Android-based devices accounted for 79% of all smartphones shipped in the second quarter of 2013, a record share for a platform that keeps growing with every passing day. In all, Gartner found that vendors worldwide shipped 178 million Android smartphones on the quarter, 40% of which were Samsung devices.
Apple’s market share, meanwhile, shrank year-over-year from 19% in Q2 2012 to 14% in Q2 2013 even though the company’s total iPhone shipments rose from 29 million to 32 million over the same period. Windows Phone showed some decent momentum on the quarter and its market share increased from 2.6% in Q2 2012 to 3.3% in Q2 2013 on shipments of 7.4 million devices. Gartner found that BlackBerry’s standing in the smartphone market continued to deteriorate, however, as its market share plunged from 5.2% to 2.7% and its shipments shrank from 8 million devices in Q2 2012 to 6.2 million in Q2 2013.
