In the global smartphone market, the big are getting bigger.
According to IDC, the total combined market share of Android and iOS swelled to 96.4 percent during the second quarter, up from 92.6 percent a year ago. That left just 2.5 percent of the market to Windows Phone, down from 3.4 percent in a year’s time.
In part, that’s because the worldwide smartphone market swelled to 301.3 million phones, moving past 300 million phones for the first time in its history, according to IDC. That represents 25.3 percent growth from a year ago.
Unfortunately for Microsoft’s Windows Phone, Apple’s iOS devices dominated the high end of the market, while Android—with 84.7-percent global share in smartphone operating systems—tended to dominate the low-end, sub-$200 market. That left precious little room for Windows Phone, even though recent efforts to lower the platform’s licensing costs should have helped propel it in the market.