As Apple and Google face off in the smartphone OS wars – lost in the fray is Microsoft. And if the latest figures from Gartner Research are any indication – Microsoft Mobile OS has gone missing in action.
Windows Mobile lost 28 percent of its smartphone market share between last year’s third quarter and this year’s third quarter, according to market researcher Gartner.
Figures released Thursday by Gartner show that Microsoft’s mobile OS had 11 percent of the global smartphone market in Q3 2008. A year later, it had 7.9 percent. Meanwhile, the iPhone’s share rose from 12.9 percent to 17.1 percent, and Research In Motion’s share jumped from 16 percent to 20.8 percent.
Symbian’s share fell from 49.7 percent to 44.6 percent over the same period–a 10 percent drop. The open-source Android OS from Google had no market share in Q3 2008 because it had only recently been introduced. In Q3 2009, however, it had 3.9 percent share.
The holiday quarter will be a sobering one for iPhone killers – since latest trending shows Apple’s iPhone poised to overtake Nokia as the most profitable handset maker – a virtual deathblow for Microsoft Mobile OS.