SYDNEY-- Online casino firm, Lucky Nugget, has announced that sales of smartphones running on Google’s Android OS now outstrip those of every other smartphone type combined, including the iPhone and BlackBerry ranges.

This represents a huge upsurge in popularity for the Android OS. While Apple have maintained their market share for iOS at around 35%, other operating systems such as Nokia’s Symbian and RIM’s BlackBerry OS have taken a severe beating at the hands of the increasingly-ubiquitous Android OS.

In the first quarter of 2011, 23.6% of smartphones sold in Australia ran on Symbian. A year later, this figure dropped to just 5.6%. RIM saw its share of the market drop from 2.8% to 1% over the same period. Meanwhile, Android has seen its market share swell to 52% of all smartphone sales in Australia.

While this is great news for Google, and the companies that make the most popular Android phones such as HTC, Samsung, and Motorola, they are not the only beneficiaries of this development. App developers now only have two major formats to develop for, which means lower development costs, and a larger market to sell to. Also, operators of mobile websites, which can be easily accessed on touch-screen Android devices, also stand to benefit from the increasing size of the mobile web audience.

One market segment that has much to gain from the move towards touch-screen mobile devices is the online casino industry. A few years ago, nearly all traffic to online casino websites came from computers with fixed-line broadband connections, which meant that gamers could only play at home. The ability to access the internet on the move via smartphones and tablets means that gamers can play online anywhere they can get a mobile internet signal. This means that the potential audience for online casinos is much larger, and this trend is expected to continue as smartphones and tablets become more prevalent.