Android beats Symbian to #1 spot

Figures from Canalys indicate that Android shipments exceeded Symbian shipments globally during the last quarter of 2010 to take the number one spot in the smartphone market.

They say that Android shipments were up by 615.1% since Q4 2009 to 33.3 million units in Q4 2010, taking the lead from Nokia/Symbian on 31.0%, Apple on 16.2% and RIM on 14.6%. Unit sales across all platforms were significantly up except for Microsoft that dropped from 3.9 million units to 3.1 million units.

You might be surprised at the level of sales Nokia still makes - remember though that a lot of midrange Nokias are technically smartphones even though they may not be used as such, and Nokia also makes significant sales in China.

Also remember that these 33.3 million Android units are split between different manufacturers, although HTC and Samsung account for about 45% of Android shipments between them.

On paper, Nokia's position still looks pretty good.. but in practice they are suffering in key markets, especially North America where volume and share have dropped significantly. We expect Nokia to stage a fightback starting next month at MWC with a new MeeGo based tablet that should be very competitive against high-end Android.. and perhaps even the possibility that Nokia might start manufacturing Android or Windows Phone 7 based devices.. who knows?

[Via]