Overall sales of mobile phones dropped in the second quarter  as consumers around the globe bought 2.3 percent fewer phones than over the same period last year. Research firm Gartner posits the idea that customers may be holding on to devices longer, waiting for the next big release.  Even in the face of declining overall sales, Android’s market share improved over the time frame.

Android’s piece of the pie grew to 64.1 percent in 2012, whereas last year saw the platform pulling in 43.4 percent. Apple, for its part, saw their market share grow ever so slightly from 18.2 percent up 18.8 percent.

So how was Android able to grow so much in a period of slower sales?  Easy – at the expense of RIM, Symbian, and Bada. You can see from the image above that each of these platforms lost sizable amounts of their share.  Interestingly enough, Microsoft’s Windows Phone was able to increase its share from 1.6 percent to 2.7 percent.