Despite an increase in its shipment volumes during the third quarter of 2013, Apple Inc.'s smartphone operating system dropped worldwide.
According to the International Data Corporation (IDC), Apple's iOS smartphone platform accounted for 12.9 percent of the worldwide market share. While the percentage for Apple gave the Cupertino-based organization second place for yet another quarter, it is a drop from the 14.4 percent during the same quarter in 2012.
When it comes to the shipment volumes, 33.8 million smartphones utilized the iOS platform, which is up from the 26.9 million during the third quarter last year. Apple lost the smartphone operating system battle again to Google's Android.
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Unlike Apple, Google's Android saw increases across the board. For the smartphone operating system market share, Android increased from 74.9 percent during the third quarter in 2012 compared to 81 percent for the same period this year. The shipment volumes with the Android smartphone operating system increased from 139.9 million units to 211.6 million units.
"Android and Windows Phone continued to make significant strides in the third quarter. Despite their differences in market share, they both have one important factor behind their success: price," said IDC's Mobile Phone team Research Manager Ramon Llamas. "Both platforms have a selection of devices available at prices low enough to be affordable to the mass market, and it is the mass market that is driving the entire market forward."
Microsoft's Windows Phone improved its position from the fourth-most utilized smartphone operating system to third place. Windows Phone previously accounted for 2 percent of the worldwide smartphone operating system market share with 3.7 million shipment volumes recorded, per the IDC. By the time the third quarter of 2013 concluded, Windows Phone increased by 1.6 percentage points. The Microsoft smartphone platform garnered 3.6 percent of the market share, which equated to 9.5 million shipment volumes.
The Windows Phone platform saw the highest year-over-year change among IDC's smartphone operating system data with 156 percent.
BlackBerry accounted for 1.7 percent of the smartphone operating system market share, which is down from the 4.1 percent during the third quarter in 2012. BlackBerry previously held third place on IDC's data but slipped to fourth. BlackBerry's shipment volumes also declined from 7.7 million units to 4.5 million units.
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