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Android continues to dominate as iOS returns to growth in U.S. and Europe
Android’s global growth has continued relatively unchecked in recent quarters. While Apple is dealing with back-to-back quarterly declines in iPhone sales amidst investor concerns, the path ahead is looking pretty rosy for Android. All this despite worldwide smartphone trends that indicate a plateauing mobile market.
But the most recent figures from Kantar Worldpanel show iOS scraping out a minimal increase in market share in both the U.S. and Europe. While any upswing in market share is better than a downturn, Apple’s gains were very moderate.
In the U.S., iOS posted a 1.3% increase from this time last year and only increased by 0.7% overall in the EU5 (Germany France, Great Britain, Italy and Spain). As Kantar notes:
Combined sales of the iPhone 6s/6s Plus totaled 15.1%, making this the top selling device in the quarter, while the Samsung Galaxy S7/S7 edge accounted for 14.1% of smartphone sales. The iPhone SE became the third best-selling phone at 5.1%.
Meanwhile in China, Apple continued its slow demise, dropping 1.8% of its market share and slipping to third place behind both HUAWEI in the top spot and Xiaomi in second position. IOS also saw a significant loss in Japan, where it dropped 4.2% from this time last year.
In China, Apple slipped to third place behind both HUAWEI and Xiaomi.
Android, on the other hand, rose significantly in almost all markets, posting increases across the board: EU5 (+5.5%); China (+2.1%); Japan (+6.6%); and Australia (+4%). In the U.S. however, Android saw a minor decrease in market share, dropping 0.6% but still retaining 65.5% of the total U.S. smartphone market. In the EU5 that market share stands at an impressive 76.8%.
However, Kantar predicts a weak third quarter for Apple, because “anticipation for the newest iPhone, usually released in late September every year, typically means a weaker summer period for iOS”. With the Galaxy Note 7 release already behind us, we can only expect to see more gains made for Android in the current quarter.
Did you expect Apple to return to growth? Do you think it will drop again this quarter?