7:41 AM Android Dominates Phone Markets in 2012

The world renowned Android operating system climbed to the top of the world phone market in the year 2012. Android handset were 68.8% of all phones sold during the year. Toppling phone technological super powers Apple, Blackberry, and Windows. Some reasons behind the big surge in the popularity of Android handsets were the hundreds of different phones that android was available on, while Windows Phone, Apple and Blackberry were only available on few select models. Apple also released on one new handset last year which dropped the prices of the iPhone 4 and 4s models, which made them more appealing to customers. Samsung sold 384.6 million phones in 2012 which contributed greatly to Androids rise to the top of the markets food chain. 

Overall, the number of phone sales in 2012 actually dropped 1.7% from the previous year, the first drop since 2009.

"Tough economic conditions, shifting consumer preferences and intense market competition weakened the worldwide mobile phone market this year," Gartner analyst Anshul Gupta said in a statement."