About four out of every five smartphones shipped globally in the third quarter ran on Google Inc.'s Android platform, data showed Friday, further cementing its dominance over other operating systems (OS).

Shipments of Android-powered smartphones totaled a record 204 million units in the July-September period, according to the data by Strategy Analytics.

That translates into the Android platform powering 81.3 percent of smartphones shipped during the cited period, also a record high, the data showed.

Android's gain came mainly at the expense of BlackBerry, which saw its global smartphone share dip from 4 percent to 1 percent in the past year. Apple Inc. also lost some ground to Android because of its limited presence at the lower end of the smartphone market, the research firm said.

Apple's iOS came second with a 13.4 percent market share with a shipment of 33.8 million units. Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Phone OS followed with a 4.1 percent market share and a shipment of 10.2 million units, the data showed.

Microsoft's growth is almost entirely due to Nokia and its steadily improving Lumia portfolio across Europe, Asia and the United States.

"However, Microsoft is clearly still at a low level of share worldwide and it is struggling to gain serious traction in several major markets like Japan, South Korea and Africa," Strategy Analytics said. (Yonhap News)