Android steals Symbian's Top Smartphone OS crown

The King is dead. Long live the King.You got it right, folks, Android is now the most popular mobileoperating system in the world according to the latest Canalys report.Sales of phones running the green robotic OS stood at 33.3 million,while Symbian smartphones accounted for 31 million in the lastquarter of 2010.

The industry has gradually stepped outof Symbian land during the last two years and now Nokia is the soleproducer of Symbian phones. Major manufacturers like Samsung, HTC, LGand Sony Ericsson have all put their chips on Google's OS and thesituation is hardly changing in the future.

Nokia still retained its position asthe global leader in smartphone sales with a share of 28%. HTC andSamsung accounted for the major part of Android smartphones with acombined share of 45%.

Nokia's official numbers for converged devices (which include smartphones and mobile computers) however differ from the estimate by Canalys. The Finns reported converged device volume of 28.3 million for the fourth quarter, even less than the figure by Canalys. Last quarter's results are no surprise,but rather prove a trend that has formed long before. It also remainsdisputable whethersome S40 devices with a touchscreen like the Nokia C3 Touch and Type could indeed fall in the smartphone category.

source: Canalysvia Yahoo! News