Android controls 81.5% of the global smartphone market

Android and iOS may be the clear leaders of the mobile operating system market but Android is the clear leader of the leaders. While the two of them combined account for more than 96% of the entire market, Android alone accounts for 81.5% which is an increase over the 78.7% share it had last year. iOS, on the other hand, accounted for 14.8% of all smartphones which is actually down slightly from last year’s 15.1%.

When it comes to the worldwide smartphone operating system (OS) market, Android and iOS are together, but not the same. Google and Apple’s mobile operating systems are, to no one’s surprise, completely dominating the world, shipping on a combined 96.3 percent of smartphone units in 2014, according to a new report from International Data Corporation (IDC). Android powered 1.1 billion shipped smartphone units in the calendar year 2014, up 32.0 percent from the 802.2 million units shipping with Google’s mobile OS in 2013. This gave Android 81.5 percent of the global market, up from 78.7 percent last year. IDC notes that Samsung remained the top original equipment manufacturer (OEM) of Android-powered phones, shipping more units than the next five vendors combined. “At the same time, Samsung’s total volumes for the year remained essentially flat while Asian vendors including Huawei, Lenovo (including Motorola), LG Electronics, Xiaomi, and ZTE fueled the most growth for Google’s platform,” according to the report.