Q1 2016 worldwide sales; Android 84pc, iOS 15pc, Windows 0.7pc, Blackberry 0.2pc. Research firm Gartner has published figures for worldwide smartphone sales during Q1 2016. Readers probably won't be surprised at the smartphone platform and brand pecking orders but the extent to which the Windows Phone platform has dropped since last year is rather catastrophic.

Starting by looking at the big picture, in Q1 2016 there were a total of 349 million smartphones sold worldwide. That's nearly 4 per cent better than a year ago when 336 million were sold during the same quarter. As usual, there's been movement in the market shares of the leading smartphone making firms and the respective platforms moved too.