Samsung is not the top smartphone maker, but the maker of the Galaxy S3 has both dominated the Android device market and made Android more popular as an operating system last year, according to two reports out today.
According to Opera Mediaworks' State of the Mobile Advertising report for the last quarter of 2012, the Android operating system is spreading rapidly across the globe, thanks partly to the Samsung Galaxy S3.
At the same time, comScore, a communications analysis company, released a report saying that, while Apple still covers over a third of total U.S. smartphone subscribers, Samsung grew more. It now commands a 21 percent share, more than double that of its next competitor, HTC.
Of the Android smartphone manufacturers, Samsung is now far and away the dominant force, and Samsung, with the Galaxy S3 gaining caché in important markets like Asia and the UK, is helping Android grow across the globe.
Android already has more than a 50 percent market share in the U.S., according to the comScore report. And while Apple's operating system is still on the top worldwide, as far as ad monetization goes, "Android smartphones edged out the iPhone by about two percentage points for market share of global impression volume,' according to the Opera report.
Opera Mediaworks, which serves 50+ billion ad impressions per month through its network of apps and mobile sites, also found that the rest of the world is catching up in smartphone use, with North America going from 70 percent of the global total of ad requests to 64 percent, while the rest of the world saw an increase, especially through Android devices.
Sources: Opera Mediaworks via Slashgear and comScore via ZDNet
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