…and for those wondering, we count each device only once (ie, we don’t count re-sold devices), and “activations” means you go into a store, buy a device, put it on the network by subscribing to a wireless service.

To put this number into a perspective, it’s good to recall that total combined iOS and Android activations  were estimated as 6.8 million on Christmas day alone.  Andy Rubin also makes historical comparisons in his tweets about daily Android activations, and, as C|Net informs,

The jump in Android activations can be followed just by reading Rubin’s tweets over the past year. On December 20, the Google exec tweeted that more than 700,000 devices were being activated each day, up from 500,000 devices in late June and 300,000 in December of 2010.

Huge surges of interest in purchasing new Android devices might be explained the hopes of these devices getting Ice Cream Sandwich quite soon.

The post Andy Rubin: 3.7 Million Android Christmas Activations appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Gartner’s mobile market report says 428 million mobile devices were sold in the first quarter of 2011, representing a 19 per cent increase of mobile devices sold year-over-year. Smartphones did exceptionally well and were sold at an 85 per cent year-over-year increase, compromising 100.7 million of the devices sold.

Android led the smartphone sales in the first quarter with 36 per cent of the market, surpassing Nokia’s Symbian, which was in second place with 27.4 per cent. Android had previously been behind Symbian at the end of 2010, with 22.7 per cent of the market while Symbian held 37.4 per cent. In third place of the first quarter was Apple’s iOS with 16.8 per cent, followed by RIM’s BlackBerry with 12.9 per cent and finally Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 with 3.6 per cent.

Gartner predicted that worldwide smartphone sales will reach 468 million units in 2011, with Android taking 38.5 per cent of the smartphone market. Gartner’s prediction sounds about right and might even be too low of an estimate when it comes to both smartphones and Android’s growth.

On the manufacturer front, Nokia still holds first place with 25.1 per cent mobile devices sold, a drop from the 30.6 per cent share the company held in the first quarter of 2010. Nokia’s market share might start to rise once the company starts selling Windows Phone 7-based devices. Microsoft will unveil their Windows Phone 7 called “Mango” on May 24th. Samsung holds second place on the manufacturer front with 16.1 per cent of the market, followed by LG, Apple, RIM and other companies whose market share is lower than 3 per cent.

The post Smartphone Sales up 85% year-over-year with Android in the Lead appeared first on Mobile Magazine.