Android Share Loss Continues in Europe “Big 5” Markets
Xiaomi returns to smartphone vendor leadership position in China
The latest smartphone sales data from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech for the three months ending July 2015 shows continued market share losses for the Android OS across Europe’s five largest markets, while Android’s share remained positive in the U.S.
Europe's big five markets are Great Britain, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain.
“Android market share in Europe was negatively impacted by challenging market dynamics in Germany, France, and Great Britain,” reported Carolina Milanesi, chief of research at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech. “In the U.S., performance was more of a level field between the two leading operating systems, as the iOS market share decline and Android share gain both decelerated.”
“The maturity of the European market is evident when looking at the declining number of first time smartphone buyers – in the 3 months ending July 2015, only 25% of smartphones sold went to first-time buyers versus 29% for the same period in 2014,” said Dominic Sunnebo, business unit director at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech Europe. “This type of market maturity increases the impact of churn on overall performance as we have seen with Android this time around – 27% of smartphone buyers across Europe left Android for iOS versus 9% in the US.”
“The U.S. market continued to be dominated by two players, Apple and Samsung, who together accounted for 64% of all smartphones sold,” Milanesi stated. “If share alone was not enough to demonstrate market dominance, our data also shows that these two vendors sold nine of the top ten best-selling smartphones in the three months ending July 2015 – with LG making a cameo appearance in the ranking.”
Tamsin Timpson, strategic insight director at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech Asia, explained, “In urban China, the market leadership battle is far from over, as Huawei was quickly dethroned by Xiaomi after reaching the top spot in June." She added, “Xiaomi takes advantage of the shortest replacement cycle in urban China, a mere 12 months against the overall smartphone average of 20 months.” Brand consideration for Huawei, however, is growing rapidly - now at 51% among consumers intending to upgrade in the next 3 months – Xiaomi reaching only 25%.”
“While market performance over the past three months might have lacked some excitement, things are about to change as Samsung’s recently-announced products begin to roll out across markets and Apple makes its big reveal on September 9, ”Milanesi said. “While all eyes will be on Apple’s new products, I would suggest people pay close attention to the current iPhone 6 and 6 Plus market performance, should the accustomed price drop occur after the September 9 product announcement. In the U.S., 32% of the overall sales of the iPhone 5s were generated after the launch of the iPhone 6.”
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