Android is on the rise. In fact, when you look at the sales numbers for Q3 2011 and compare them to the sales numbers for the same period one year prior, you’ll see that Google’s mobile operating system has effectively doubled its market share. This means that Google Android now has an impressive 52.5 percent market share. Compare that to the 25.3 percent it had in Q3 2010.

The recent report comes by way of Gartner, revealing that a total of 60.5 million Android-based smartphones were sold in the third quarter fo this year. The next closest competitor is Nokia with its 19.5 million smartphones sold, but the Finnish company lost more than half its market share compared to 2010 (16.9% vs. 36.3%). Nokia was also the overall leader in mobile sales, but again, its market share shrank from 28.2% to 23.9%.

Apple more or less held steady at 15.0% (compared to 16.6% last year), selling 17.3 million iPhones in Q3. The assumption is that people held off for a while there, waiting to get their hands on the iPhone 4S. When looking at all mobile phones, Apple only accounts for 3.9 percent, compared to the 17.8% enjoyed by Samsung and the 4.8% earned by LG.

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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.

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