Eighty-four percent of smartphones shipped worldwide in this year’s third quarter came with Google’s Android operating system, a worrying slowdown for the tech behemoth, according to new data released from the market research firm, Strategy Analytics.

While only down 1 percent from the previous quarter, analysts believe this slowdown is evidence that Android’s market share has topped out, and is now slipping.

Strategy Analytics executive director, Neil Mawston, told the Wall Street Journal that “unless there is an unlikely collapse in rival Apple iPhone volumes in the future, Android is probably never going to go much above the 85 percent global market share ceiling.”

The new research brings some encouraging news for Google as well, despite the potential slowdown. For one, Strategy Analytics predicts that the overall smartphone market will continue to grow. The firm forecasts 12 percent growth in 2015.

For another, the growth of independent versions of Android — known as “android forks” — also appears to be slowing. These phones come without Google’s lucrative mobile app suite. Android forks made up 37 percent of android phones shipped in the third quarter, a 2 percent decline. This decrease in “forks” is good news for Google because the company makes no money from the Android OS itself. Rather, it takes a cut of the revenue generated from items sold in the Google Play Store, while also profiting through advertisements that appear in apps like Google Search, Google Maps and YouTube.

According to the new numbers, Google’s rivals did not come close to matching the search engine company’s smartphone dominance. During the third quarter, 12 percent of smartphones shipped globally were iPhone, while Windows Phones and BlackBerry snared 3 percent and 1 percent of the global market respectively.

“Android’s leadership of the global smartphone market looks unbeatable at the moment,” Mawston told CNET.