Report: Android to surpass Apple by 2012

Sales of smartphones running on Google's Android platform will surpass those of Apple by 2012, according to new research by Informa Telecoms & Media.

The research firm said that though handset sales will decline generally in 2009, sales of smartphones are predicted to grow by 30 percent. The key to growth will be open-source development projects such as Android and the Symbian OS. So far, LG Electronics, Motorola, Samsung and Sony Ericsson are among the major vendors that have committed to launching Android phones before the end of the year.

In a related note, Reinhard Clemens, the CEO of Deutsche Telekom's large businesses division T-Systems, criticized Microsoft's Windows Mobile platform and called Android the future mobile OS standard. Deustche Telekom is the parent company of T-Mobile USA. Clemens was speaking at this year's Cebit conference, and said that Android's open-source nature gave it a definitive edge.

For more:
- see this article on the Informa Research [1]
- see this article on Deustche Telekom [2]

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