Android maintained its position as the leading mobile operating system worldwide in the fourth quarter of 2023 with a market share of 70.1 percent. Android's closest rival, Apple's iOS, had a market share of 29.2 percent during the same period.
The leading mobile operating systems
Both unveiled in 2007, Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS have evolved through incremental updates introducing new features and capabilities. The latest version of iOS, iOS 16, was released in September 2022, while the most recent Android iteration, Android 13, was made available in August 2022. A key difference between the two systems concerns hardware - iOS is only available on Apple devices, whereas Android ships with devices from a range of manufacturers such as Samsung, Google and OnePlus. In addition, Apple has had far greater success in bringing its users up to date. As of February 2023, 81 percent of iOS users had iOS 16 installed, while in January 2023, only a quarter of Android users ran the latest version.
The rise of the smartphone
From around 2010, the touchscreen smartphone revolution had a major impact on sales of basic feature phones, as the sales of smartphones increased from 139 million units in 2008 to 1.43 billion units in 2021. In 2020, smartphone sales decreased to 1.38 billion units due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Apple, Samsung, and lately also Xiaomi, were the big winners in this shift towards smartphones, with BlackBerry and Nokia among those unable to capitalize.
