New research report came out confirming Android’s relentless market penetration. According to report published by Canalys, Android is now industry’s top mobile operating system in US and number 2 worldwide. It’s the later part which is going to define next round of mobile war. From here on, Nokia has everything to lose.

In Q3 2010, the worldwide smart phone market grew an impressive 95% over the same quarter a year ago to 80.9 million shipped units. Nokia retained its leadership position, albeit by a diminished margin, with a 33% share of the market. Apple’s healthy performance this quarter saw it achieve a 17% share worldwide, a little ahead of RIM, which held a 15% share this quarter. In the world’s largest smart phone market, the US, Apple ousted RIM from the top spot, seizing a 26% share as iPhone shipments continued unabated. RIM has also launched its latest generation smart phone, the Torch, though it only saw half a quarter’s shipments in the US. But the plethora of smart phones running the Open Handset Alliance’s (OHA’s) Android platform meant that Canalys’ final published country-level data shows that it took the lead in the US market by operating system (OS), with a 44% share.

Numbers related to India were important to understand market dynamics in BRIC region. This will also throw light on Google’s emerging market strategy. Nokia sold nearly 1.1million smart phones. This is the market Google would love to gobble. Expect large number of Android hardware manufacturers to target this market.

In India, for example, Nokia held a 65% share of the smart phone market, and grew its shipments 208% year-on-year to 1.1 million units. The combination of affordable smart phones and its Ovi suite, which offers e-mail and messaging, navigation and music services, continues to prove popular in India, with products such as 523x series of smart phones performing well.

Android apps and availability of large number of java developers will put a very high bar for Nokia to cross.