Android continues to lead the way in global smartphone sales

More than eight out of 10 smartphones sold now ship with Google's Android mobile operating system. © svetikd/IStock.com

According to figures from Gartner, 344.3 million Android smartphones were sold worldwide in Q2 2016. This makes for a 4.3 per cent increase in sales year on year.

Samsung is still the undisputed market leader, selling no less than 76.7 million handsets in Q2 with a 22.3 per cent market share. This puts the South Korean tech giant way ahead of Apple (44.3 million, 12.9 per cent). Samsung is followed by three Chinese manufacturers: Huawei (30.6 million, 8.9 per cent), Oppo (18.4 million, 5.4 per cent) and Xiaomi (15.5 million, 4.5 per cent). Note that Apple is the only one of the top five phone makers to see a fall in sales, dropping 3.7 million and 1.7 percentage points of market share in the space of a year.

As for operating systems, Android and iOS alone account for 99.1 per cent of smartphone sales. Google's Android is still storming ahead of Apple's mobile OS, shipping with 86.2 per cent of smartphones sold worldwide, compared with 12.9 per cent for iOS.

Sales of handsets running Windows are now trivial after being in freefall for a year, slipping from a 2.5 per cent market share to just 0.6 per cent, or 1.9 million smartphones sol, in Q2. Blackberry fares even worse, claiming just 0.1 per cent of smartphone sales worldwide, down from 0.3 per cent in Q2 of 2015.