Google's Android operating system dominates smartphones, despite losing market share to iOS with the launch of iPhone 5 last year: just over a third of all mobiles shipped in the last three months of 2012 were powered by Android, according to stats from analyst firm Canalys.
Google's OS accounted for 34 per cent of all mobile phones shipped, while 11 per cent run iOS. Almost half of all handsets shipped are smartphones, with Android making up 69 per cent of them.
Big gaps at the top
The gaps between the top three vendors seem to be widening, too. Samsung is still the biggest phone maker in the world, and has a "colossal" lead over Apple - it shipped 74 million more handsets than the Cupertino company. And Apple in turn shipped 101 million more than third place Nokia.
Lenovo was the surprise of the last 12 months, growing 216 per cent year-on-year and replacing Sony as the fifth biggest phone maker. Jessica Kee, an analyst at Canalys, said in a statement that 98 per cent of Lenovo's mobile business is in China.
While Apple launched the iPhone and iPad in China recently, it's not making much of an impact, according to the report. Canalys puts this down to the fact that Apple's handset isn't available on China's biggest network - which has 750 million customers - and the fact that it's relatively expensive compared to other phones.
Via Canalys
