Apple dropping as smartphone fans opt for Android

Apple may have reported healthy iPhone sales this week, but its being dwarfed by its robotic competitor.

The recent IDC tracker findings, which look at the worldwide shipments and market share of all mobile phone makers, noted that Apple shifted 31.2 million iPhones in the last quarter, but only nabbed 13.1% of the market.

Apple and Samsung were the only two vendors in the top five to report a drop in market share, with LG, Lenovo and ZTE all clawing back some ground as Android handsets grew massively in popularity.

LG was one of the big winners in the last year, driven mostly by the popular Nexus 4 (although this was thanks to Google's incredible subsidy on the handset) as well as members of its Optimus G and F- and L-Series phones too.

Lenovo and ZTE grabbing fourth and fifth place respectively shows that China is becoming a key battleground in the smartphone war, and one that Apple has yet to come close to cracking thanks to ongoing battles to effectively range its handsets in the region.

Not the One?

HTC is once again absent from the rankings, despite gaining awards all over the world for its recent One handset.

The company has recently released the HTC One Mini, and it strongly tipped to re-enter the budget market soon, along with unveiling a phablet device, in order to address dwindling sales and profits.

Don't worry about Samsung though, as the South Korean brand is way out in front of the pack, with shipments of 72.4 million smartphones showing a huge increase on the 50 million shifted in the same period last year.

The rise of interest in the market is such that this actually led to a drop in its share, taking 30.4% of the market.

Nokia is still in second place in the overall worldwide mobile phone (including non-smartphones) market, lobbing 61.1 million units into the market to take 14.1%. It was a drop of 27% year on year, but we'll gloss over that.

So come back at the same time next year, to see if Huawei, HTC or Nokia can mount an assault on the top five. Set yourself a calendar reminder now, in case you forget. We'll wait.