Wednesday, November 16, 2011: A recent report by research firm Gartner Inc. said that Google's Android software runs on over 50 per cent of the smartphones sold in the third quarter. Android emerged as the clear winner in the third quarter, leaving behind iOS devices as well.

The main reason for the increase in sales is cited to be a traction for Samsung devices, which is doing extremely well. According to the Gartner report, Android OS accounted for 52.5 per cent of the smartphone sales in the third quarter, doubling its share from the previous year. What comes as a surprise is the fact that the sale of Android device was not affected even after Apple's iPhone 4S launch. There was a lot of buzz in the market surrounding the product but that could not affect Android's growth.

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

The data reveals that smartphones gained one percentage point from the previous quarter to 26 per cent of all mobile-phone sales. Nokia's Symbian handsets emerged as the major loser. It lost almost 20 per cent points from the past year and reached the mark of 16.9 per cent in the smartphone market. Samsung, the maker of the Galaxy line of Android smartphones, became the biggest smartphone maker for the first time.

The global mobile handset market gained 5.6 per cent to 440.5 million phones.