Google's Android platform is forecast to ship on over 20 million handsets in 2010, up from 6 million in 2009, IMS Research said.
However, the rapid pace of Android's growth also threatens to fragment the platform – which occurs when applications written for one version of the operating system are not compatible with another version.
The rapid evolution of Android from 1.5 to 2.1 has resulted in four different versions of the OS shipping across devices.