Smartphones running the Android operating system made up 78 per cent of the 1 billion units shipped worldwide in 2013, according to ABI Research.
Most of the growth in Android came from AOSP devices, or 'forked' Android Open Source Project devices, ABI Research said. Sales of these devices increased by 137 per cent year-on-year.
During Q4 2013, 221.5 million Android and Android Open Source Project (AOSP) smartphones were shipped, accounting for 77 per cent of the global market, up from 146.7 million in Q4, 2012.
“The growth of AOSP is significant for Android’s owner Google, because AOSP does not offer Google’s services due to their unavailability in China, impacting Google’s ability to monetise the Android ecosystem,” said Nick Spencer, senior practice director, mobile devices at ABI Research.
iOS smartphones only made up 18 per cent of the market in Q4 2013, with 51 million Apple smartphones shipped globally.
“Apple continues to avoid a low cost smartphone product to target these markets, focusing instead on its traditional premium segment, where growth is harder to achieve due to fast approaching market saturation,” said Spencer.
Microsoft Windows Phone took 4 per cent market share, growing 19 per cent from Q3 2013.
BlackBerry took 1 per cent market share, growing 42 per cent since the previous quarter.
Other operating systems that did not report many shipments for the quarter were BlackBerry 10, Firefox, Microsoft Windows Mobile and Symbian.
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