The latest market share numbers from tracking firm IDC show Android in the lead and Apple's iOS losing ground globally, as expected in the period before the new iPhone is announced. Also showing healthy (even robust) growth is Windows Phone.
Microsoft's mobile platform saw shipments in Q2 grow by 77.6 percent, from 4.9 million to 8.7 million. That may be peanuts compared with the tens of millions of iPhones and hundreds of millions of Android phones being sold, but it's solid growth — and it puts Microsoft above the beleaguered BlackBerry, which is steadily losing customers despite reinventing its platform.
Most of Windows Phone's growth is due to Nokia's well-received and increasingly visible Lumia series of smartphones, which made up more than 80 percent of the platform's sales last quarter.
As for Android and iOS, the real battle will come this fall, when the next generation of iPhone is expected to be out. But in the meantime (as indicated by IDC's recent smartphone shipments report) Android is exploding. With around 187 million units sold last quarter alone (73.5 percent more than in 2012's Q2), Android has taken almost 80 percent of the smartphone market.
But with the big launches from HTC, Samsung, and LG (the just-announced G2) behind us, the fall may still belong to Apple, depending on what the next iPhone brings to the table.
Devin Coldewey is a contributing writer for NBC News Digital. His personal website is coldewey.cc.
