Android on 37% of all phones shipped in Q4, iOS on 11%

Analysts at Canalys are done crunching the numbers and released a report on the state of mobile phones in the final quarter last year. Phone shipments (438.1 million units in total) were flat year on year, but that’s at the expense of feature phones. Smartphone shipments went up 37% and made up half of all handsets sold.

There were 216.5 million Android phones in the mix (69% of smartphones and 37% of all phones). That’s a decline compared to the last quarter of 2011, when Android commanded 74% of smartphone shipments.

iOS (chief competitor of Android) went up from 15% to 22% share of smartphones shipments for the quarter (11% of all phone shipments), riding on the success of iPhone 5. BlackBerry and Windows Phones are at the bottom with 4% and 2% shares respectively.

There was some reshuffling of smartphone players in Q4 2012. Samsung and Apple were on top, but Huawei snatched third place (first time for the company), ZTE took forth while Lenovo elbowed out Sony for fifth. Lenovo’s shipments for the quarter grew 216% year on year to 9.5 million units, almost all of which (98%) ended up in China.

For the whole year, Samsung ended up on top in terms of smartphone shipments with 74 million units more than Apple (which took second place). Nokia held on to third with 35 million units total.

China is the biggest phone market in the world, with people preferring smartphones with the number of units shipped more than doubling. Samsung took top spot with Lenovo, Yulong, Huawei and ZTE following. Apple is having a tough time in China, mostly due to the higher price of its smartphones and lack of support from China Mobile, according to Nicole Peng, China Research Director at Canalys.

Source