Smartphone Sales Up 85% Year-Over-Year

Gartner’s mobile market report says 428 million mobile devices were sold in the first quarter of 2011, representing a 19% increase year-over-year. A lot of that growth is due to smartphone sales, which were at 100.7 million, a 85% year-over-year increase.

The big winner in this quarter was Android, which soared past Symbian to capture 36% of the market. Nokia’s Symbian is in second place with 27.4%, followed by Apple’s iOS with 16.8%, RIM’s BlackBerry with 12.9% and Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 with 3.6%.

For comparison, at the end of 2010, Android and Symbian’s roles were nearly reversed, with Symbian holding 37.4% of the market and Android being far behind with 22.7%.

Recently, Gartner predicted that worldwide smartphone sales will reach 468 million units in 2011, with Android taking 38.5% of the smartphone market. With Windows Phone 7-based Nokias still being far on the horizon and iOS growing steadily but not as explosively as Android, Gartner’s prediction sounds about right (and perhaps even too conservative as far as Android growth goes).