Analysing what's happening in the smartphone market is made harder because of the dominance of Android, now over 80% market share, because of the take-up by Chinese and Asian manufacturers (including Samsung) pumping out relatively low cost handsets. Even Symbian in its heyday only got to just over 60% marketshare. But it's a large pie to have slices of and both Apple's iOS and Windows Phone managed to increase their unit sales year on year, in the latest Q4 stats, even if market share had to bow before the Android juggernaut. More below, thanks to IDC.

From the IDC press release:

Smartphone OS Highlights

Android pushed past the one billion unit mark in 2014, a significant milestone by itself but also because total Android volumes in 2014 bested total smartphone volumes in 2013. Samsung retained the leadership position by a wide margin, shipping more volume than the next five vendors combined. At the same time, Samsung's total volumes for the year remained essentially flat while Asian vendors including Huawei, Lenovo (including Motorola), LG Electronics, Xiaomi, and ZTE fueled the most growth for Google's platform.

iOS saw its market share for 2014 decline slightly even as volumes reached a new record and grew at nearly the same pace as the overall smartphone market. Much of this was due to the strong demand for Apple's new and larger iPhones and the reception they had within key markets. What remains to be seen is how Apple will sustain demand going forward, as larger screens were among the last gaps in its product portfolio.

Windows Phone had the smallest year-over-year increase among the leading operating systems growing just 4.2%, well below the overall market. Having finalized its acquisition of Nokia in the spring of 2014, Microsoft relied primarily on a long list of entry-level Lumia devices to maintain its position in the market, and relied on its partners HTC and Samsung to provide cover on the high-end of the market. With the launch of Windows 10 later this year, Windows Phone stands to make a more concerted effort to return to the high end of the market.

BlackBerry posted the only year-over-year decline among the leading operating systems, falling -69.8% from 2013 levels. 2014 marked a year of rationalization for the beleaguered platform, and by the end of the year the company had revealed multiple enhancements to its platform and new device additions with the BlackBerry Passport and BlackBerry Classic. CEO John Chen anticipates 10 million units will be shipped in 2015, returning the company to profitability and marking a 72% increase over the 5.8 million units shipped in 2014.

Top Four Smartphone Operating Systems, Unit Shipments, Market Share and Year-Over-Year Growth, Q4 2014 (Units in Millions) 

Operating System	4Q14 Unit Volumes	4Q14 Market Share	4Q13 Unit Volumes	4Q13 Market Share	Year-Over-Year Change
Android	289.1	76.6%	228.4	78.2%	26.6%
iOS	74.5	19.7%	51	17.5%	46.1%
Windows Phone	10.7	2.8%	8.8	3.0%	21.6%
BlackBerry	1.4	0.4%	1.7	0.6%	-17.6%
Others	1.8	0.5%	2.3	0.8%	-21.7%
Total	377.5	100.0%	292.2	100.0%	29.2%

The usual five-iPhones-sold for every Windows Phone ratio is skewed here for Q4, traditionally Apple's best quarter of the year, following the arrival of the new designs (and Christmas) - the ratio here was seven-to-one, though this should come down into 2015.

And yes, we seem to forever be saying that Windows Phone is in a holding pattern, waiting for the next big thing... In this case it's the new high end devices that will come with Windows 10 (for phones) in the summer and autumn. But in the meantime, I'd be surprised if the Lumia 535, 735 and 830 didn't sell well in Q1 2015 and get Windows Phone shipments up to nearer 12 or 13 million for the quarter.