Following on from the IDC figures earlier this month, we now have Gartner's analysis and considered opinions, focussing on mobile operating systems and ecosystems, summarised and quoted below. Symbian-powered shipments were indeed now behind Android, but still retained 27% of the entire new smartphone market.

From Gartner:

“Smartphones accounted for 23.6 percent of overall sales in the first quarter of 2011, an increase of 85 percent year-on-year,” said Roberta Cozza, principal research analyst at Gartner. “This share could have been even higher, but manufacturers announced a number of high-profile devices during the first quarter of 2011 that would not ship until the second quarter of 2011. We believe some consumers delayed their purchases to wait for these models.”

Nokia's push towards the lower ends of the market with smartphones has been well documented ovet the last few years. As many have observed, the Android world is now following suit:

Although in mature markets the shift from feature phones to smartphones is accelerating, smartphones overall moved down-market in the first quarter of 2011. Several manufacturers, including HTC, Sony Ericsson, Alcatel and ZTE, announced a broader portfolio of mid-tier devices, mainly based on Android, which will reach the market in the second quarter of 2011.

Android and Apple's iOS continued to dominate the smartphone operating system (OS) wars (see Table 2). However, the big news in the first quarter of 2011 was Nokia's strategic alliance with Microsoft on Windows Phone 7, and the retirement of Symbian. “This will precipitate a competitors’ rush to capture Symbian's market share in the midtier,” said Ms. Cozza.

Worldwide Smartphone Sales to End Users by Operating System in 1Q11 (Thousands of Units)

Source: Gartner (May 2011)

On the subject of the fledgling Windows Phone 7 platform:

Windows Phone saw only modest sales that reached 1.6 million units in the first quarter of 2011, as devices launched at the end of 2010 failed to grow in consumer preference and CSPs continued to focus on Android. In the long term, Nokia's support will accelerate Windows Phone's momentum.

The long term investment in ecosystems by individuals was a particularly interesting quote:

The shift toward an ecosystem focus, application and services is the critical success factor for device manufacturers. “Every time a user downloads a native app to their smartphone or puts their data into a platform's cloud service, they are committing to a particular ecosystem and reducing the chances of switching to a new platform. This is a clear advantage for the current stronger ecosystem owners Apple and Google,” said Ms. Cozza. “As well as putting their devices in the context of a broader ecosystem, manufacturers must start to see their smartphones as part of a computing continuum.”

In summary then, no great surprises all round, but despite the well-documented imminent 'retirement' of Symbian, it should be noted that the sheer inertia behind the platform saw it selling almost as many units in Q1 2011 as Apple's iOS and Blackberry combined. Symbian's fall from the top of the table to the bottom will take a lot longer than many journalists expect.

Source: the Gartner report "Market Share Analysis: Mobile Devices, Worldwide, 1Q11" at http://www.gartner.com/resId=1688625.