Android blowing past iPhone; Microsoft still small

Google's mobile operating system Android will have the largest share of the smartphone market at the end of this year, according to a forecast by research firm Gartner.





After redesigning and launching Windows Phone 7, Microsoft is still expected to lag last among the top five smartphone operating systems, with a projected 6 percent share at the end of 2011 compared to 4 percent in 2010.

Android is expected to grow to 39 percent from 23 percent in 2010.

Apple's iPhone is expected to grow to 19 percent.

Research in Motion, which makes the Blackberry, is expected to fall, from 16 percent to 13 percent share.

Symbian, the operating system for Nokia phones, is expected to drop significantly from 37 to 19 percent.

Nokia has said that its future smartphones will run on Windows Phone 7. The companies have not said when the Nokia Windows phones will start selling, but it looks like Gartner does not expect the partnership will make a sizable difference to Microsoft's share in 2011.

In Thursday's news release about its mobile report, the analyst firm said, "Gartner predicts that Nokia will push Windows Phone well into the mid-tier of its portfolio by the end of 2012, driving the platform to be the third largest in the worldwide ranking by 2013. Gartner has revised its forecast of Windows Phone's market share upward, solely by virtue of Microsoft's alliance with Nokia. Although this is an honorable performance it is considerably less than what Symbian had achieve in the past underlying the upward battle that Nokia has to face."

Gartner estimates smartphone sales will 486 million in 2011, a 58 increase from 2010. Smartphones do not represent the entire mobile phone market. Smartphones describe a category of mobile phones that run on an operating system that developers can build applications for.