Android has overtaken Windows Mobile and Linux for fourth place in smartphone OS market share with 9.6 percent, says Gartner. The worldwide study of first quarter smartphone sales showed a 707 per cent year-on-year increase in Android sales in North America, while the total smartphone market saw its largest year-on-year increase since 2006, says the research firm.

Smartphone sales to end users reached 54.3 million units, an increase of 48.7 per cent from the recession-burdened first quarter of 2009, says Gartner. This is said to represent the largest yearly rise in 14 years, although we doubt a 2006 "smartphone" would remotely justify that name today.

Smartphones accounted for 17.3 per cent of all mobile handset sales in the first quarter of 2010, up from 13.6 per cent in the same period in 2009, says the study. (For more on global sales of all handsets, see farther below.)

The top three smartphone OS contenders remained about where they were last quarter. Symbian slipped slightly to 44.3 percent share for first place, and somewhat surprisingly Research In Motion (RIM) — which Gartner says moved up into the top five vendors in total handset sales this quarter (see farther below) — saw its smartphone share drop slightly to 19.4 percent.

Aside from Android, Apple's iPhone OS was the only smartphone platform to grow during the quarter, moving up to a 15.4 percent share for third place, says the research firm.

In Gartner's study of the 4Q 2009 smartphone market, released back in February, Android was in sixth place behind Windows Mobile and Linux in OS market share with 3.9 percent of the market. At the time, Microsoft owned 8.7 percent and Linux represented 4.7 percent, said Gartner.

In a single quarter, however, Android has shot past both operating systems to a 9.6 percent share. Meanwhile, Windows Mobile has dropped to 6.8 percent and Linux has fallen to 3.7 percent, says the research firm.

Other OSes counted for only 0.7 percent, says Gartner. Since Palm's WebOS represented the same percentage share only last quarter, the Linux-based OS probably represents most of that 0.7 percent. However, with HP purchasing Palm, it seems unlikely that WebOS share will grow much, as the computer giant appears to be more interested in using the platform for tablets than for phones.

Gartner did not publicize smartphone share broken down by region except to say that in North America, sales of Android-based phones increased 707 per cent year-on-year. This trend was reflected in a recent NPD Group study of first-quarter U.S. smartphone sales, which claimed that Android surpassed Apple's iPhone to take the second spot behind RIM, with 28 percent of the market.

A number of recent smartphone studies, including one by ComScore, which pegged Android's U.S. smartphone share at 9 percent at the end of February, have concluded that Android is the fastest growing OS in the category. Gartner gave no reason for the continuing post-holiday boom in Android sales, although by most accounts, the Motorola Droid (pictured at right) continued to lead Android phones in sales by a wide margin.

One Android model that debuted during the quarter was the HTC-manufactured, Google-branded Nexus One (pictured at left). Despite reasonably strong sales of more than a quarter million units, Sprint and Verizon have both pulled out of arrangements to sell the phone, and last Friday, Google stopped selling the phone on its Webstore. The Nexus One is still available on T-Mobile and Vodafone, however.

Handset sales see 17 percent year-on-year increase