iOS vs. Android vs. Windows Phone Market Share 2013: Apple Inc. Slips, Google Gains But iOS Still No. 1 for December 2013

December has come and gone, and new mobile operating system market share figures have been released.

For Apple, according to NetMarketShare, the iOS platform maintained the top position as the world's most utilized operating system between mobile phones and tablets. iOS represented 54.27 percent of the platform market share, which is down 9 percent from the 55.17 percent seen during November 2013.

iOS easily squashed its nearest rivals with the second-place contender coming 18.86 percentage points behind the Apple mobile and tablet platform.

Google's Android finished at second place for another consecutive month. Unlike Apple, the Google platform saw an increase in its market share percentages by 1.52 points. Android finished December 2013 with 35.41 percent, up from the 33.89 percent from November.

The Java ME platform held at third place. Although the platform slipped by 0.59 percentage points, Java ME accounted for 3.9 percent for December, which is down from the 4.49 percent from November.

Symbian, BlackBerry, Kindle, and Windows Phone did not change rankings as the platforms held fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh places, respectively.

Symbian garnered 3.18 percent of the mobile and tablet operating system market share ahead of the 1.58 percent for BlackBerry. Kindle narrowly finished ahead of Windows Phone with 0.95 percent to 0.55 percent, respectively.

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