Android maintained its position as the leading mobile operating system worldwide in the first quarter of 2025 with a market share of about 71.88 percent. Android's closest rival, Apple's iOS, had a market share of approximately 27.65 percent during the same period. The leading mobile operating systems Both unveiled in 2007, Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS have evolved through incremental updates introducing new features and capabilities. The latest version of iOS, iOS 18, was released in September 2024, while the most recent Android iteration, Android 15, was made available in September 2023. A key difference between the two systems concerns hardware - iOS is only available on Apple devices, whereas Android ships with devices from a range of manufacturers such as Samsung, Google and OnePlus. In addition, Apple has had far greater success in bringing its users up to date. As of February 2024, 66 percent of iOS users had iOS 17 installed, while in the same month only 13 percent of Android users ran the latest version. The rise of the smartphone From around 2010, the touchscreen smartphone revolution had a major impact on sales of basic feature phones, as the sales of smartphones increased from 139 million units in 2008 to 1.39 billion units in 2023. In 2020, smartphone sales decreased to 1.38 billion units due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Apple, Samsung, and lately also Xiaomi, were the big winners in this shift towards smartphones, with BlackBerry and Nokia among those unable to capitalize.

Based on global shipments, Apple was the leading media tablet vendor between 2011 and 2024. As of the third quarter of 2024, the Apple iPad held an almost 32 percent share of the global tablet market, down from around 36 percent in the previous quarter. Tablet market share in 2023 – additional information Around 128.5 million units of tablets were shipped worldwide in 2023, with shipments reaching over 36.8 million units in the final quarter of the year. Throughout the year, around 48.5 million iPads were shipped, while Samsung tablet units were about half of Apple's. However, Android overtook Apple’s iOS as the most popular operating system in 2012 until the second quarter of 2022, when Apple regained the leading position. As of the fourth quarter of 2023, about 55 percent of all tablets that were shipped worldwide ran on the iPadOS operating system. Android remains the second most popular operating system, holding a shipment share of 45 percent. Apple vs. Samsung Apple is the leading tablet vendor, holding a share of almost 32 percent of global tablet shipments in the third quarter of 2024. The company has nevertheless seen its market share in the tablet market decline in recent years. This has coincided with the rise of Samsung, whose tablets run on Android, which has seen its market share rise from 7.3 percent in the last quarter of 2012 to 19 percent in the second quarter of 2024. Overall Samsung shipped around seven million units of tablets in that quarter, in comparison to the 12.6 million shipped by Apple, which generated the company revenue of almost seven billion U.S. dollars.