2014 was a big year for Android devices according to research firm Strategy Analytics. The company tracks smartphone shipments around the world and its data shows that a billion Android smartphones shipped globally in 2014. According to the metrics, global smartphone shipments grew 30% during the year reaching a total of 1.3 billion units.
Android smartphones made up 81% of all smartphones shipped during the year and 2014 marked the first time in history that Android units shipped over a billion devices. In 2013 global smartphone shipments reached 1 billion total. For 2014 Android shipped as many units as the entire smartphone market did the previous year.
The closest operating system to Android for 2014 was iOS with Apple shipping 192.7 million iOS smartphones globally making it a distant second place. iOS had a 15% share of the smartphone market for 2014.
Microsoft shipped 38.8 million smartphones to grab 3% of the global smartphone market. All other smartphone OS’ accounted for 9.3 million devices shipped, giving all other operating systems a scant 0.7% of the market.
SOURCE: StrategyAnalytics
