Research company Gartner has announced that Google’s Android Operating System (OS) has overtaken Apple’s iPhone OS and become the world’s third most popular OS.

Android sales represented 17% market share during Q2.

The report also said that Android was on track to overtake RIM’s BlackBerry OS and become the world’s second biggest platform behind Nokia’s Symbian OS. Interestingly according to Gartner, the Android OS has already overtaken the BlackBerry OS in the US.

“A non-exclusive strategy that produces products selling across many communication service providers, and the backing of so many device manufacturers, which are bringing more attractive devices to market at several different price points, were among the factors that yielded its growth this quarter,” says Gartner research VP Carolina Milanesi.

The report also says that during Q.2 the year-on-year sales of mobile devices had risen by 14% reaching $326 million. However profit margins have fallen as competition between handset manufacturers had driven down profit margins.

“We attribute the decline in average price to a stronger dollar, a depreciating euro, and intense competition that drove price adjustments and changes to the product mix,” says Milanesi.

Concerning handset manufacturers, the report says that HTC (8TH) has broken into the top 10 mobile device makers for the first time during Q2 due to its popular range of Android devices and an aggressive brand strategy seeing its year on year market share increase by 139%.