Sales of smartphones in the last quarter of 2010 shows that for the first time since its release,Google’s Android platform has overtaken Nokia’s Symbian in terms of market share, with Android achieving 32.9% compared to Nokia’s 30.6%. Apple and Blackberry both noted a drop in sales and the new boy on the block, Microsoft trails the field with a poor 3.1% of the market share.
This puts Android in a great position, as the operating system which sells the most phones attracts more providers to manufacture phones that can be used with it. Whilst Nokia ruled the mobile phone world in the late 20th century, the times they are a-changing. Nokia are the soul manufacturer of phones on the Symbian operating system, which is fine if you love the N7 but for those of us wanting more choice and variety the wide range of handsets available on the Android platform makes operating system choice a no brainer.
Whilst the Android platform apps market is still playing catch up to Apples thriving App Store, with around 90,000 apps available on Android compared to over 300,000 in the App Store, there are significantly more free apps available for Android and a wider choice of developers working on new ones. Android phones support a wider range of file formats for music, video and documents, although they do lose out on Apples Lossless audio file format, which allows super compression of CD quality music into MP3 sized files without losing any of the audio playback quality.
As the number of manufacturers supplying the OS increases, the price of the handsets gets driven down. The latest mid-range offering from popular manufacturer HTC, the HTC Gratiapromises to be one of the smallest, most powerful smartphones available for the money. Whilst it is not in the same league as the much revered iPhone 4, the HTC Gratia outstrips the performance of most of the handsets in its class and with a price tag of less than half that of the iPhone. And with ever better and cheaper phones becoming available on the Android platform, such as the forthcoming Samsung Galaxy Ace, the competition is going to have to up its game if they are to keep up with Google’s wonder horse.
With the likes of the HTC Gratia and the Samsung Galaxy Ace setting the bar for smartphone providers, Apple, Microsoft, Nokia and Blackberry are going to have to work hard to catch up with the value for money these little phones and many others like them can provide on the Android
platform.
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