Google’s Android platform has reached record worldwide sales numbers, according to analysts. Research firm IDC said that the Google mobile OS is the first to surpass 100 million quarterly shipments in a single quarter.
The platform powered some 136 million handsets, giving Android a 75 percent market share of all shipments. The company noted that Android also saw its shipments rise by 91.5 percent over the previous year’s quarter, a growth rate roughly double that of the smartphone market as a whole.
Analysts credit the soaring sales in part to Google’s ability to build and maintain a large ecosystem for the platform.
“Google has a thriving, multi-faceted product portfolio. Many of its competitors, with weaker tie-ins to the mobile OS, do not,” explained IDC senior research analyst Kevin Restivo. “This factor and others have led to loss of share for competitors with few exceptions.”
Second in the quarter was Apple’s iPhone.
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