IDC: Nearly 1 billion Android smartphones may be shipped this year, plus 180 million iPhones and 47 million Windows Phones

Least year, for the first time ever, more than 1 billion smartphones were shipped to customers around the world, according to IDC. For 2014, IDC forecasts that this number could grow to over 1.2 billion, with about 950 million smartphones shipped this year being based on Android (grabbing an estimated market share of 78.9%).



Apple could ship almost 180 million iPhones throughout 2014 (14.9% market share), the research firm says. As for Windows Phone, handsets based on it could account for 3.9% of the market in 2014 thanks to up to 47 million units shipped. Lastly, 11.9 million BlackBerry ...