Exactly How Much Do Android Phones OUTSELL the iPhone?

Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android significantly widened its lead over Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) iOS in the global smartphone arena last quarter, even as the two companies continued their combined domination of the overall market. Phones running on Android accounted for 68 percent of the global market, four times the 17 percent share held by Apple’s iPhone devices, according to a new report from research firm IDC. That adds up to an Android-iOS market share of 85 percent.

Nearly 105 million Android phones were shipped in the second quarter, more than double the number shipped during the same period last year. “Android continues to fire on all cylinders,” IDC senior research analyst Ramon Llamas said in the report and attributed the continuing growth to affordable prices and newer Android phone models.

Significantly, most of the Android growth was attributable “directly” to Samsung, according to IDC. The Korean smartphone vendor represented 44 percent of all Android phones shipped during the quarter and more than the next seven manufacturers combined.

Apple added 28 percent to its sales figure from 2011 to 26 million phones now, but suffered because of rumors that the iPhone 5 is set to be announced by the company soon.

Research in Motion’s (NASDAQ:RIMM) BlackBerry fell almost 41 percent to 7.4 million to account for less than 5 percent of the market, its lowest level since 2009. Nokia’s (NYSE:NOK) Symbian operating system also sank “to a new nadir last quarter,” IDC said. Symbian shipments fell more than 60 percent to represent only 4.4 percent of the market, while Microsoft’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) Windows Phone and Linux took the final 6 percent.