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Android Passes Symbian As Most-Shipped Mobile Platform 256

Posted by Soulskill from the is-it-trendy-yet dept.
nk497 writes "Symbian is no longer the most-shipped mobile platform, with Android finally knocking Nokia's OS out of the number one position. Manufacturers shipped 32.9 million Android devices in Q4 of last year, compared to 31 million Symbian devices, according to Canalys. That gives Google a 33% share of the global mobile market, over 31% for Nokia's Symbian. 'It's gone from nowhere to number one in the space of two years, which is pretty impressive,' Canalys analyst Pete Cunningham said, predicting Android would double its growth rate this year."
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Android Passes Symbian As Most-Shipped Mobile Platform More

Android Passes Symbian As Most-Shipped Mobile Platform

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  • That gives Android a 33% share of the global mobile market

    Google has a heavy hand in Android, but doesn't necessarily "own" it. Quoth http://source.android.com/ [android.com]

    We wanted to make sure that there was no central point of failure, so that no industry player can restrict or control the innovations of any other. That's why we created Android, and made its source code open.

    "No industry player can restrict or control the innovations of any other" supposedly includes Google too.

    • Android != "Android Powered by Google" which is what every phone and tablet ships with.

      Android is technically open source but the vast majority is Google's build and app suite which includes non-open-source code.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sznupi ( 719324 )
        Actually, the numbers from TFA apparently include the Chinese versions (two now, iirc); counting them together has its own problems of course.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by PCM2 ( 4486 )

        Android != "Android Powered by Google" which is what every phone and tablet ships with. Android is technically open source but the vast majority is Google's build and app suite which includes non-open-source code.

        That's not really true; I read about at least one Android phone (from Samsung?) where the default search provider was Bing. Each phone maker also has its own custom "skin" that adds a bunch of functionality on top of stock Android. Other than Google's Nexus phones, almost nobody uses a stock "powered by Google" build. Mine has messaging and contact management software written by Motorola, for example. It syncs Gmail contacts, but it does so through Motorola's own online services.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tripy ( 1753236 )

          almost nobody uses a stock "powered by Google" build

          and in my circle on friends, everyone diss over htc sense, and the various "extensions" that are included by brands, ans many, including I, have rooted their phone just to go back to a simple AOSP (Android Open Source Platform) base build. True, not everyone will take that risk to get ride of the overlay that is installed, but if the choice was given, I'm sure many users would choose the blend, bare version.

  • They really have it in for Nokia (Score:3)

    by Gadget_Guy ( 627405 ) * on Monday January 31, 2011 @09:31PM (#35062878)

    Gee, they really have it in for Nokia. Symbian is "ailing" at slightly less than 2 million units less than the market leader. I bet Microsoft would like its mobile platform to be ailing by that much!

    They are apparently a "struggling mobile firm", while at the same time it "retains solid market share" and sales of units are "still growing well". While nobody would argue that Nokia's marketshare hasn't slipped, it does seem to be too much damnation of what is "still the number one handset manufacturer".

    • Gee, they really have it in for Nokia. Symbian is "ailing" at slightly less than 2 million units less than the market leader.

      Pretty obvious they mean the rate at which Nokia's market share has dropped.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by artor3 ( 1344997 )

      The difference between Microsoft and Nokia is that MS exists outside the mobile market. Microsoft has plenty of income from Windows and Office, plus some from Xbox to keep them going. They can afford to lose money on Bing and Windows Phone and all the other markets they try to buy their way in to. Eventually, they'll find one they can succeed in, and it'll make the company that much more successful. Compare that to Nokia, which is steadily losing ground in its bread and butter. As their market share sh

    • They are apparently a "struggling mobile firm", while at the same time it "retains solid market share" and sales of units are "still growing well".

      That doesn't mean they aren't in trouble. A few years ago Windows Mobile had a huge installed base, but that doesn't mean the handwriting wasn't on the wall. There used to be a lot more Blackberry users as well. Nokia needs to be careful.

    • It's all about the new hotness vs. the old and busted. Nokia is the latter. Apparently, the former was once Apple, but it might now be Google (technically, everybody-else-but-Microsoft uses Android on their handsets, so as Google doesn't make their own phone anymore, it could also fall under Other).

      Of course, Nokia's smartphone offerings have always been a bit on the weak side. They've only made their hardware features fancier as the phones got more expensive, whereas iOS and Android are being sold primaril

      • Their touchscreen phones, perhaps, but I wouldn't say their smartphone offerings as a whole have been weak. The N95 was an incredibly influential device in that brief window before everyone realised there was more to life than T9 keypads.

    • I'd say that going from undisputed 50%+ marketshare champion to tied-for-first with an upstart that didn't even exist about three years ago is cause for concern, yeah. It only gets worse in the larger context. Symbian was spun off as an open-source project to be a cheap, ubiquitous smartphone platform, an objective at which it has been so thoroughly trounced by Android that Nokia has had to resorb the business. Nokia, meanwhile, locked itself into in a race to the bottom in hardware design on the catastroph

  • I'd like to see the os breakdown of phones that are getting replaced this year.

  • Hmm... (Score:3)

    by node 3 ( 115640 ) on Monday January 31, 2011 @09:45PM (#35062976)

    FTA: "In the last quarter of 2010, manufacturers shipped 32.9 million Android devices"

    Apple sold more iOS devices in their last quarter. 16.24 million iPhones, 7.33 million iPads, and over 9.25 million iPod touches (19.45 million iPods, over half of which were iPod touches, but they didn't give a breakdown). That's over 32.8 million iOS devices. I didn't include the 2 million Apple TVs.

    Also, Apple's numbers are actual hard figures. Android sales figures are all based on estimates because there is no place to get proper numbers from. Samsung, for example, recently claimed to have sold 2 million Galaxy Tabs, but when pressed on it, stated that's how many are in stock at stores, not how many have been sold (elaborating that *actual* sales are much, much lower). This is from an analyst who has reported the highest numbers.

    None of this is to say that Android is not doing great. It is. But reality is not quite what the headline states.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by h4rr4r ( 612664 )

      Android has 350k+ activations a day. On smartphones iOS will be in second place, right were apple wants it. They want to be the up market trendy choice, they are all about image and high price. They want to be BMW, which means you will not see Toyota levels of sales.

      • They want to be the up market trendy choice, they are all about image and high price. They want to be BMW, which means you will not see Toyota levels of sales.

        Apple devices are dirt cheap, these days the only people who don't have an iphone are those who don't want one. The ipad isn't exactly the highest priced tablet either, it's a pretty cheap device.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by h4rr4r ( 612664 )

          Go ask someone who lives outside the USA. Go ask some Indians for example.

          • Go ask someone who lives outside the USA. Go ask some Indians for example.

            Don't make assumptions, i'm not american. I *am* someone who lives outside the USA.

          • Apple devices are dirt cheap, these days the only people who don't have an iphone are those who don't want one. The ipad isn't exactly the highest priced tablet either, it's a pretty cheap device.

            Dirt cheap? It costs 700 dollars to get one that only has a 64 GB hard drive. You could get a full blown Windows 7 convertible laptop/tablet for that price! And it would run far more advanced applications, be more versatile (full sized keyboard anyone?), handle any peripheral under the sun and do just about any tas

            • Dirt cheap? It costs 700 dollars to get one that only has a 64 GB hard drive. You could get a full blown Windows 7 convertible laptop/tablet for that price! And it would run far more advanced applications, be more versatile (full sized keyboard anyone?), handle any peripheral under the sun and do just about any task you want it to.

              Well clearly the ipad should be failing quite badly then...oh but it isn't. The fact is a lot of people don't need the extra functionality of the laptop - especially when it's going to be relatively low-end for that price - so they go with something FAR more portable and user-friendly. And look at the launch sales figures, it's hardly a niche device with a prohibitive cost.

        • Re:Hmm... (Score:4, Informative)

          by Microlith ( 54737 ) on Monday January 31, 2011 @10:59PM (#35063468)

          Apple devices are dirt cheap

          No they aren't. It only looks like that because you can't buy them in the US without agreeing to a 2 year contract with enormous monthly fees.

          • Re:Hmm... (Score:4, Interesting)

            by nkh ( 750837 ) on Tuesday February 01, 2011 @03:12AM (#35064782) Journal
            Same thing in Europe with the 12 or 24 month contract. My 29€ Android phone is available and affordable for most people, the iPhone is not.

        • Apple devices are dirt cheap, these days the only people who don't have an iphone are those who don't want one.

          You are delusional. Let's see, here in europe... iPhone=700 Euros. Top end android (galaxy S or HTC Desire) or maemo (N900)=450 euros. For no extra hardware.

          Of course if you let a carrier charge you 100 dollars a month for 2 years they'll give you an iPhone and throw in a pony as well...

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by sbryant ( 93075 )

            Apple devices are dirt cheap, these days the only people who don't have an iphone are those who don't want one.

            iPhone=700 Euros. Top end android (galaxy S or HTC Desire) or maemo (N900)=450 euros

            I think your prices may be a little out of date. Current prices in Germany in Euros are: iPhone 3G (8Gb) costs 519, 4G costs 629 (16Gb) or 739 (32Gb); N900 costs 369 (32Gb) from amazon.de. Android is as you say.

            Your point still stands: Apple devices are definitely not dirt cheap. All of them are more expensive t

    • Well the article, that you quoted, is rife with contradicting lines, but nowhere did I see any mention of any device that wasn't a phone. So how is it that you can lump all the non-phone iOS stuff, and then claim that's apples to apples?

    • Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Grokmoo ( 1180039 ) on Monday January 31, 2011 @10:08PM (#35063124)
      Despite the title, what this article is actually referring to is smartphone sales. That does not include iPods or iPads.

      What I find interesting is that despite essentially doubling their iPhone sales since the middle of 2010, Apple is now already a distant second to Android in terms of sales and smartphone market share. This situation is especially remarkable when you consider where Android was 2 or even 1 year ago.
      • Android is about to take over. This is just the very beginning. I believe Android will continue to dominate the global market for some time to come. The iPhone and App store is regulated too harshly and Apple just isn't cost effective. While Apple does have great style and innovative designs, people that don't have the money to shell out on their relatively expensive products will nab up Android phones. Android phones will also be moving away from cell phone companies with their own VOIP, like Google V

        • Android phones will also be moving away from cell phone companies with their own VOIP, like Google Voice or Skype. Google is against carriers in general (nexus) and wants to cut out the need for "minutes". Soon everything will be free VOIP and we'll only pay carriers for bigger data plans. Android is leading this idea, but Apple just isn't moving that way. Anyone agree or have anything to add?

          Sure looks that way - I hardly ever pay for "minutes" any more, mainly because of Sipdroid and the fact that a certain mobile service provider here in Germany (O2) allows VoIP on their network. I gladly shell out cash for the biggest internet package they have available, because I can use it in any way I want (OK, P2P is contractually forbidden, but what am I going to download via illegal P2P that's smaller than 5GB? :P)...

          In addition, most ISPs here include free calls to domestic landlines, including SIP a

      • This is what I predicted 18 months ago when it was on one crappy phone and I left my job to learn Android. People thought I was stupid to pick Android over iOS... but you can't argue with several major phone manufacturers getting behind a platform. They are too big, they will *make* it do well.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by mcrbids ( 148650 )

      Sure, reality isn't quite "what the headline states". But the reality is actually stronger than what's stated, not weaker!

      Because companies far and wide are building their business on Android! LG is betting heavily on it. So is Samsung. Perhaps more importantly, so are the clone phones - companies too small to have names we'd recognize, but who make phones nonetheless.

      Ever hear of "Huawei"? (How do you even pronounce it"?) Yet at the local store for the regional low-cost cell company, it sells for just $129

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Sique ( 173459 )

        Of course I have heard of Huawei! It's one of the biggest sellers of telco and network equipment worldwide, surpassed only from the likes of Cisco and Juniper. My UMTS card is based on Huawei technology, and so are most of them sold here around. If you are working in a network or telco environment, Huawei stuff will probably have already dropped on your feet.

      • The Huawei tech is G1/G2 tech mostly. You get acceptable performance levels at last years tech which is the N1. I expect by summer or years end to see the first phones with the hardware level of the N1 show up in this price range. Apple should be scared, and they are (given Steve Jobs last years rant)

    • And that's why we see the "shipped" instead of "sold". It's kind of like MS when they state how many that pushed into their supply channel. Again, not saying Android isn't doing well, but I would be even more impressed if these companies weren't so shady with their numbers.

    • Samsung, for example, recently claimed to have sold 2 million Galaxy Tabs, but when pressed on it, stated that's how many are in stock at stores, not how many have been sold (elaborating that *actual* sales are much, much lower).

      Guess what? Apple does the same thing with iPads.

      I can buy iPads from Best Buy. Those shipped to Best Buy are counted in your 7.33 million iPads, as are the ones shipped to AT&T. Same with iPhones.

      Y'know when they talk about "channel inventory"? That's what they're talking about.

    • Ok... Lets forget the usual - RTFA. And get to the fact that Android is 90% phones(conservatively) and "There are lies, damn lies and statistics". You can basically turn any number to your advantage.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jrumney ( 197329 )

      FTA: "In the last quarter of 2010, manufacturers shipped 32.9 million Android devices"

      Apple sold more iOS devices in their last quarter. ... That's over 32.8 million iOS devices.

      So even according to the numbers you pulled out of your own arse, you are wrong!

      • Uh, he actually stated right after the 32.8 million that he still needs to add the 2 million Apple TV's, which would put iOS at 34.8 million. You should probably finish reading people's posts before you start flaming them.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jrumney ( 197329 )
          And in the next quarter when the number of Android smartphones shipped surpasses the number of iOS smartphones, media players, tablets and set-top-boxes (which don't even run iOS apps) combined, he'll want to start including the emulators shipped with the SDK. What next?
    • Samsung sold billion toasters and million lady shavers I've heard. Does that count?

    • ipods and ipads aren't mobile platforms. The headline is quite correct. Note we aren't counting non-mobile android applications like Nook or Samsung tablet sales.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mgblst ( 80109 )

      People really feel the need to defend apple, for some silly reason. You can massage then number anyway you want, androidmhasmdone great, so has apple. Ther is no reason to get upset.

  • I would be interested in speculation about what Microsoft's Ballmer thinks about this kind of news.

    If I were him, I would find ways of commingling popular Microsoft services and software like Bing, Hotmail, IE, and the MS Office suite to only work on Windows 7. Then I'd sit down and watch cash from licensing flowing in.

    It would be IE vs Netscape all over again.

    • Re:Can we speculate about what Ballmer is thinking (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Miamicanes ( 730264 ) on Monday January 31, 2011 @10:16PM (#35063174)

      > It would be IE vs Netscape all over again

      Except this time, Netscape is metaphorically Microsoft's product, and IE smells like fresh, hot gingerbread. Mmmmm!

      Take away Google, and the streets will riot, Take away Bing, and... er... um... someone might eventually notice. Maybe.

      Hotmail? Is that actually used for anything besides MSDN SSO credentials anymore?

      IE? (rolling on the floor, gasping for breath amidst near-lethal amounts of laughter). People with *Windows Mobile* didn't even use Internet Explorer before Android came out. We used Opera, and paid for it, because Pocket IE sucked like a whore with braces. I'm sure Microsoft did a much better job with IE on WP7... but then again, a chimp with a Commodore 64 and a pirated copy of GEOS could probably improve upon PIE in its WM6.x incarnation.

      MS Office Suite? Meh. Apps to view and edit word/excel docs are free and abundant. Outlook still can't do adhoc aliases properly, and Android can be induced to lie about its authentication capabilities so you won't have to indulge your company's IT department's wet dreams by entering a 16-digit passcode before it allows you to answer an incoming phone call.

    • You're assuming that everyone wants Bing, Hotmail, IE, and the MS Office suite. Only business people want Office and even then they don't really want the suite as they much the ability to open their documents. Most consumers don't care about it. As for the other things: They really don't care about Bing. They just want search. Until WP7's version of IE, it sucked so much no one used it. Hotmail? Seriously, I don't anyone who really uses it. Even then, they don't care about it as much as they care a

      • I am not that sure about Bing...you're right I guess. But for Microsoft Office, everyone I know uses the suite. The trouble is that the longer MS waits, the more irrelevant their products become.

        In fact, one could argue that folks at Microsoft would be better served if they adopted Android, then changed the default search engine to Bing Search, Bing Maps and Travel, exploited its openness to push Microsoft services and apps down users' throats.

        That would yield better results than their current strategy.

  • ... would still be in last place even if they counted shipping out plus returns.
  • When is Nokia going to come to its senses and switch to Android? Then, they'll be the biggest manufacturer with the most popular OS.

    • Then they're nobody, same as Samsung, Motorola, LG, etc.

      Nokia doesn't want to be like them.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sznupi ( 719324 )
        Motorola - certainly, they'll hardly make anything, hardly have anything under their control. LG - sort of outside context, they almost might be seen as a "legislated" competition to ... Samsung. Which grows wildly. And invests in hard R&D and manufacturing of all the building blocks.
        So, the OS might be common - but with strong control of other ingredients (used also by other manufacturers) they might very well be a powerhouse surpassing the significance of ... Intel (trying to find possibly the close

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by 2Bits ( 167227 )

      No, Nokia should be focusing on Meego and come up with some real devices to run it. When N900 came out, it was the best. There were some problems with the OS and software, but it was way ahead of its competitors. Android was like a joke. But for almost two years, while Nokia is sleeping, everyone is leaping forward. How many releases of Android and how many generations of Android devices have we seen during this time?

      Since I lost my N900 in a bar, I digged out my HTC Pro from the drawer and have been wait

      • Re:Nokia (Score:5, Interesting)

        by c.r.o.c.o ( 123083 ) on Tuesday February 01, 2011 @02:17AM (#35064530)

        I have a feeling that Nokia is actually two companies when it comes to OS development. On one side you have the Maemo/Meego guys that are relatively new and up to even two years ago were an insignificant part of the company. On the other.you have the old school Symbian guys that have been there for years, and who obviously do not want to lose their bread and butter by ditching their aging OS. So they chose to keep improving Symbian, hoping they will make it relevant and competitive. They might have had a shot if not for Android moving so quickly ahead.

        Anyway, I posted in the previous Nokia thread from a few days ago, and there's no point in repeating everything I said there. But I definitely agree with your assessment of the N900. I still have mine and I use it as my only phone, pda, ebook reader, mp3 player and netbook. But it's not the hardware that is amazing, since a year and a half later it's starting to show its age. It's in the level of customization, since the thing is running a full version of Linux without any restrictions at all.

        That's where Nokia should have pumped out more devices, even if the software wasn't perfect. I'd be very tempted to buy another Maemo/Meego device tomorrow if it had current 1Ghz+ dual core CPUs, more RAM and a slightly better camera.

      • Re:Nokia (Score:5, Interesting)

        by bmcage ( 785177 ) on Tuesday February 01, 2011 @05:35AM (#35065376)
        Qt closed of the final Meego components: http://labs.qt.nokia.com/2011/01/31/well-be-right-back/ [nokia.com]

        Hence, they are close too announcing a product. All current Qt apps from Symbian will work on it, so if people are happy with their current Symbian phones, they should be all go.

        They are sitting on a nice product, let's just hope they can deliver. Sounds from Intel are such to indicate we can expect phones/tablets Q2 2011 ( http://www.cio.co.uk/news/3258820/intels-meego-os-to-start-shipping-tablets-and-netbooks/ [cio.co.uk] ). Don't forget the first thing the new CEO said was not to communicate about devices before they where actually ready to almost ship. So do things the Apple way when it comes to devices. That is a good strategy.

      • Re:Nokia (Score:5, Informative)

        by KozmoStevnNaut ( 630146 ) on Tuesday February 01, 2011 @06:06AM (#35065488)

        Nokia will be announcing the N9 at the MWC in a couple of weeks, supposedly it's the successor to the N900.

        Capacitive 800x480 (or higher) touch screen, hardware keyboard, Nokia's usual high-quality construction, Meego, probably 32-64GB storage, it's going to be a monster powerful device and probably replace my netbook altogether.

    • Re:Nokia (Score:5, Interesting)

      by SpazmodeusG ( 1334705 ) on Monday January 31, 2011 @11:44PM (#35063740)

      Hell no!

      Nokias N900 has the X Terminal right there if you want it and you can get root access with a simple "root" command on the shell. Nokia fully supports it. The Windowing System is X. You can SSH to the phone via it's wifi and use it just like any remote X system. It's essentially a Linux PC with a great phone application in-built. It runs Skype perfectly. Almost every app on Linux can be ported to the N900 by a simple make and configure on the phone itself (yes you can put GCC straight onto the phone).

      There's no way in hell i want Nokia to take the relatively locked-down Android path. They are doing the right thing as it is.

    • Hopefully never. I've been optimizing my code all night for Symbian. This app is going to rock!!!

  • Seriously.
    Nokia has a huge brand name and while I can't stand the bastards (I've delt with their support before) your average phone consumer loves a nokia phone, still huge brand recognition.

    They need to maintain their brand name and release phones with Android on them, it should keep them relevant for the future.

  • Heres a list of OS by manufacturer

    • Blackberry OS -- RIM
    • iOS -- Apple
    • Android -- Motorola, Samsung, Nokia(soon enough?), HTC, Hauwei, my Toaster(soon enough?)

    If everyone jumps onboard the OS is going to dominate the market. Take Windows for example, any PC manufacturer can preload it on their machine's for sale. MacOS....not so much(Hackintoshs excluded)

    • If everyone jumps onboard the OS is going to dominate the market

      This assumes the PC market functions the same way as the cellphone market. That doesn't seem to be the case: the user expertise is generally lower, web (and web-based/derived) interfaces and modern development environments lower the barriers to cross-platform development and intraplatform fragmentation is a much larger problem (especially on Android), the device's useful lifetime is shorter and the cost to the consumer much lower.

      Android could

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sznupi ( 719324 )
        Seemingly short lifetimes of devices, in some places (most people throughout the world are on prepaid and own their phone) are in large part determined by addiction to "free" handsets during carrier contract renewals. The devices themselves are getting into "good enough" area.

        • I recently looked into my Tmobile account to find that i have my upgrade available and to my surprise they offer a low-end android based phone. Granted, it's no Droid or Galaxy S model, but the barrier for entry has been broken. MetroPCS, a popular prepaid carrier in the area, rolled out a few Android-powered smartphones for the $100-200 price point. You can consider that to be a "free, with contract" phone on any other carrier.

          Tmobile Comet(manufactured by Hauwei) -- http://mobile.engadget.com/2010/11/04/t [engadget.com]

          • Similarly I got an LG Optimus from Optus in Australia. It came with 100mb of data per month but I found out recently that the built in google sync uses exactly that amount of data. So take care with that.

  • The number of Android phones shipped is impressive, but that's spread over a number of hardware companies. On the other hand, all the iOS phone sales have a direct revenue benefit to Apple. I guess it's the same for Nokia sales.

    Because I'm lazy I haven't bothered to research how many Android phones each hardware company ships, but I'd be surprised if any have profits from their Android phones close the the profits Apple makes from the iPhone. I'm not aware of any direct revenue that Android contributes t

    • I'm not aware of any direct revenue that Android contributes to Google

      A number of good apps are ad supported, ads being Google's biggest business. I wonder how many google ads the average android user sees in a day?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by adolf ( 21054 )

        I wonder how many google ads the average android user sees in a day?

        I'm not average, but on an average day, I see none.

        root handset; install adfree; experience little or no advertising.

        (I don't mind paying for things that I use, but I do not want to see advertising for things that I will never want.)

    • by what measure? In purely social and economic terms, I would argue that the exact inverse of your title is true: the more efficient a market is the closer prices will be to the marginal cost of a product. In the case of a tool / platform like a smartphone, this means that the greatest possible number of consumers will have access to valuable resource and therefore the high volume low margin product has the potential to generate significantly greater economic activity and social benefit than the low volume

    • To put your argument in context, the new figures give Apple a global 51% revenue share. They're officially making more money on mobile phones than everyone else in the world put together.

  • The iPhone becomes available for preorder for Verizon customers starting at 3am eastern time on February 3rd.

    Lets see how the sales jump in three days shall we.

  • Am glad that Android is a more popular mobile platform than a female masturbation device.

    https://www.sybian.com

  • The last time my android knocked the sybian machine out... Oh wait, wrong forum. (it was quite a show, nevertheless)

  • The answer i all the tablet, netbooks and other gizmos churned out en masse from China, that run Android (because it's easy to implement being so open, and pretty much free.) They are all 'mobile devices'.
    Meanwhile, Symbian almost doesn't exist outside of phones. Psion palmtops are pretty much dead and the rest of the world uses all kinds of more developer-friendly systems on phones.

    I wonder what the mobile phone market share is.

    In other news, mobile phones without OS* still outnumber phones with an OS 10:1

  • Summary is terribly wrong... (Score:3)

    by Turmio ( 29215 ) on Tuesday February 01, 2011 @04:57AM (#35065216) Homepage
    Nokia shipped 123.7 million phones in 2010 Q4. Out of them smart phones were the quoted 31 million. So the summary should say that Android overtakes Symbian in the smart phone segment, not all mobile phones. Those over 90 million phones are cheaper models running S40 etc. That makes Symbian still the most-shipped mobile platform.
    Sources:
    http://www.intomobile.com/2011/01/27/nokia-q4-2010-sales-up-profits-down/ [intomobile.com]
    http://www.nokia.com/press/press-releases/showpressrelease?newsid=1482864 [nokia.com]

    • Nokia Series 40 isn't Symbian. And it's not a platform, as far as development goes. It can run JavaME apps, so I guess you could say that it sales count toward Java's considerable share of the mobile phone business.

      Series 60 was a Nokia platform that was based on Symbian, which explains your confusion.

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