Apple iPhone marketshare shrinking with Android claiming 68% of the worldwide smartphone market: Study

Apple’s share of the worldwide smartphone market has shrunk to 16.4%, down from 18.9% a year earlier, with Android running on 68.1% of all smartphones shipped, according to new figures from Canalys.

The research found that total worldwide smartphone shipments reached 158.3 million for the second quarter of 2012, up 46.9% year-on-year from the 107.7 million smartphones shipped during the second quarter of 2011.

There was strong growth in Android smartphones with shipments reaching 107.8 million for the quarter, up 110% from the 51.2 million shipped for the same quarter last year. Interestingly, the figure means that second quarter Android smartphone shipments now exceed the combined worldwide shipments for all platforms for the same quarter in 2011.

While Apple’s growth rate failed to keep pace with the market, the absolute number of smartphones it shipped grew by 28%, from 20.3 million in the second quarter of 2011 to 26 million in the second quarter of 2012.

The news was less rosy for Research in Motion’s BlackBerry devices, with shipments falling 32.1% year-on-year, from 12.5 million to 8.5 million, alongside a fall in marketshare from 11.6% to just 5.4%.