According to a research more than 50 percent of the smartphones are powered by Google Inc''s Android.

Quoting from the research done by Gartner, a Bloomberg report says that the Google system accounted for 52.5 per cent of smartphone sales, more than doubling its share from a year earlier, Gartner said in an e-mailed report. Even as some consumers delayed purchases to wait for Apple Inc's latest iPhone and other models, smartphone sales by volume grew 42 per cent, it said. 

"Android benefited from more mass-market offerings, a weaker competitive environment, and the lack of exciting new products on alternative operating systems," Roberta Cozza, an analyst in Gartner's European unit based in Egham, England, said in the report. 

Smartphones gained one percentage point from the previous quarter to 26 per cent of all mobile-phone sales. Nokia Oyj 's Symbian handsets lost almost 20 percentage points from a year earlier to account for 16.9 per cent of smartphones as the company shifted to Microsoft Corp. Windows Phone software on models scheduled to ship this month. Samsung, provider of the Galaxy line of Android smartphones, became the biggest smartphone maker for the first time. 

Wait for promotions 

"The entry-level Android smartphones are getting better and better," Cozza said in an interview. "This lower end is really what will be driving more growth next year." 

The global mobile handset market gained 5.6 per cent in the third quarter to 440.5 million phones, Gartner said. It slowed from 35 per cent growth reported a year earlier and 16.5 per cent in the previous quarter. 

Nokia retained the top spot with a 23.9 per cent market share, climbing from 22.8 per cent in the second quarter. Samsung, LG Electronics Inc, Apple, and ZTE Corp rounded out the top five vendors. 

"The rate of growth in smartphones has definitely slowed down in Western Europe and the US" Cozza said in the interview. "The fatigue in demand is partly due to the economic uncertainty, but consumers also want to wait until the fourth quarter to get more from the promotions and new devices that are available now." 

Smartphone growth slowed from 74 per cent in the second quarter although China and Russia continued to grow strongly, Cozza said. Gartner forecasts 50 per cent growth in smartphones for the year and 11 per cent growth in the handset market overall. The company is revising its European forecasts downward as smartphone sales declined 19 per cent in Italy and 8 per cent in Germany from the second quarter, Cozza said. 

RIM's BlackBerry 

Nokia's smartphone share fell to 16 per cent from 20.9 per cent in the second quarter, putting it in second place behind Samsung, which had a 20.9 per cent smartphone share, according to Gartner. Apple was third with a 15 per cent share. 

BlackBerry handset maker Research in Motion Ltd declined 4.4 percentage points from a year earlier to 11 per cent of the smartphone market in the quarter. 

RIM unveiled two more smartphones based on the BlackBerry 7 operating system today. The BlackBerry Bold 9790 and BlackBerry Curve 9380 will compete for holiday sales with Nokia's Lumia 800 and Lumia 710, as well as Apple's iPhone 4S and the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. 

"Continued pressure is impacting RIM's performance, and its smartphone share reached its lowest point so far in the US market, where it dropped to 10 per cent," Cozza said in the report.