Four years after the launch of the world’s first Android powered phone (the T-Mobile G1), there’s no denying that Android is the dominant player within the smartphone market sector. According to the latest numbers from the IDC, a total of 136 million smartphones powered by Android accounted for 75% of all smartphones shipped in the third quarter of 2012. The remaining 25% of the smartphone market share was made up by iOS (14.9%), BlackBerry (4.3%), Symbian (2.3%), Windows phone (2%) and Linux (1.5%).

While Apple’s iOS did show a 57.3% year-over-year increase in units shipped, those numbers appear minuscule when compared to Android 91.5% increase. One number which we’ll be paying close attention to over the next few quarters is Microsoft’s smartphone market share. In the past year, Microsoft somehow managed to nearly double its market share from 1.2% to 2%. With the launch of Windows Phone 8 and a fairly impressive lineup of devices from Nokia, Samsung and HTC, we have a feeling Microsoft’s market share could reach double digits.

Did any of you expect Android’s market share to grow so much in the same quarter that Apple launched its highly-anticipated iPhone 5?