Informa Telecoms and Media have published a report which concludes that Android smartphone sales will probably outsell sales of the Apple iPhone by the year 2012.
According to said report, come 2013 virtually two out of every five mobile phones sold is expected to be smartphones as mobile phone sales are set to decline by 10% in 2010 while smartphones grow by in excess of a third.
It is expected due to their openness that platforms such as Google Android, Symbian and LiMo will thrive compared the likes of Apple, Palm, Research In Motion and Microsoft. It’s a big expectation for Android to out sell the Apple iPhone by 2012, but with more handsets becoming available on the Android platform anything is possible.
Source – itproportal
Android is free & open source, so it will likely find its way to VERY inexpensive devices/phones. Apple does not normally play in the low cost device market. Thus, it is quite plausible that Android will overtake the iPhone, thanks to low cost, high volume devices/phones.