Smartphone sales up by 50 per cent, and Android comes up smiling

The smartphone boom continues to benefit everyone in the business with a 50 per cent sales increase in the second quarter - and with Android in particular coming up trumps.

Android shifted an impressive 10.6 million smartphones during the second quarter of this year to become the third largest operating system on the market. Google's little green robot may not look very smiley, but the people behind the OS presumably are, because it already occupies the number one slot in America, and is destined for bigger things, according industry experts.

Market analysts Gartner are responsible for the figures, which show 326 million handsets being sold over the last three months - nearly 20 per cent of which were smartphones. Symbian still holds the smartphone OS top spot worldwide, but although its sales were up last quarter its market share dropped from 51 to 41.2 per cent.

Meanwhile RIM still holds the second place with a slight drop in market share, and Android moves up to number three leaving Apple's iOS in fourth place and Windows Mobile trailing behind in fifth. However, even the new world order won't stay in place for long, according to Gartner, which expects Android to muscle its way into the number two position by the end of this year.