Kantar Worldpanel Comtech’s latest OS marketshare stats have arrived, revealing gains for iOS in most markets except China and Japan, where iOS fell, with a big gain for Android in China but a big loss in the US.
Although Wall Street’s “expectations” for iPhone sales were supposedly not met, Kantar reports good news for iOS in most markets, and especially so in the US, the UK and Australia.
The stats show that the greatest increase for iOS came in the UK with 40.4% of smartphone sales, an increase of 5.6%, and in the US, with 38.9% of smartphone sales, an increase of 5.2% year-over-year.
Lauren Guenveur, Kantar’s consumer insight director, said: “The first quarter of 2017 produced the lowest iOS share in China since the second quarter of 2014 with 12.4% of smartphone sales. Android continued to make year-on-year gains with 87.2% of smartphone sales.
“For iOS, this represents a 9.1 percentage point drop from the first quarter of 2016. At the same time, iPhone 7 remained the best-selling device in urban China with 3.8% of a market that has become increasingly fragmented.”
{loadposition alex08}Tamsin Timpson, Kantar Asia’s strategic insight director, said: “As a percentage of Android sales, Huawei continued to dominate in urban China at 36%. Oppo, which took the Chinese market by storm in 2016, has become the second largest Android brand with 13% of sales. Samsung fell to sixth place behind local Chinese vendors Xiaomi, Meizu, and Vivo, at just 5% of sales.
“Oppo’s strength is in its brick-and-mortar presence, which accounts for 86% of their smartphone sales. This contrasts with most other brands in the market who all make at least a third of their sales online, except for Vivo.”
Timpson then went on to share Australia data, stating that: “The latest smartphone purchase data for the 3 months to March 2017 shows Android share down marginally to 59.8% vs the same period a year ago, whilst iOS share has increased by almost 4% to 39.1%.
“The iPhone 7 remains the top-selling model with a share of 14.4%, with the larger-screened 7 Plus accounting for a further 6.3% share.
“Ninety-two percent of iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus buyers previously owned an Apple device, with 52% upgrading from an iPhone 6 or 6 Plus, and that 'had a previous good experience' was their overriding reason for choosing either of the iPhone 7 models.”
Timpson continued: “Among the Android players, Samsung enjoys share growth in total smartphones from 34.4% in March 2016 to 35.1% in the 3 months to March 2017, with both the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge continuing to perform well, commanding shares of 6.9% and 6.8% respectively.
“Additionally, its 2017 version of the Galaxy A5 is attracting consumers for its high specs at a slightly more affordable price. Following a similar trend to EU5, Chinese brands continue to gain momentum, now making up 21.7% of Android sales or 13.3% of total smartphone sales in Australia, led primarily by Huawei (4.6%), Alcatel (2.2%), Oppo (2.2%) and ZTE (2.1%).
“To date, this group of brands has more of a presence in the prepaid market, where 1 in 4 prepaid handset purchases are one of the emerging Chinese brands due to their strong skew towards sub-$200 and $200-$400 price points. However, as we see the major carriers expand their ranges of such brands and increase consumers’ awareness of them, we may well see more of a shift towards postpaid plans with Chinese handsets offered at prices stretching beyond the $400-$600 price tier.
So, what about Europe?
Well, in the big 5 European markets (EU5) of the UK, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain, Kantar tells us that “Android accounted for 76.3% of smartphone sales in the first quarter of 2017, nearly on par with a year earlier at 75.6%. iOS posted a 1.9 percentage point gain to reach 20.7 percent of smartphone sales.
Dominic Sunnebo, Kantar’s European business unit director, said: “Across EU5, Chinese brands have grown over the past year to account for 22 percent of smartphone sales. Huawei, the second largest Android brand across France, Italy, Germany, and Spain, has also started to make its presence known in Great Britain, where it has historically struggled.
“Huawei accounted for 6.3% of smartphone sales in the UK in the first quarter of 2017, an all-time high, making it the third-largest Android brand in that market behind Samsung and Sony.”
And in the US?
Here, Kantar tells us that Android accounted for 59.2% of smartphone sales, compared to 63.4% a year earlier, while iOS captured 38.9% of sales, up year-on-year from 33.7%. Kantar noted the drop in Android share has been driven “largely by lower sales of Samsung and Moto phones, the largest and third-largest Android-based brands in the market".
Guenveur explained: “While Chinese vendors are enjoying growth in places like EU5, Latin America, and India, the same cannot be said in the US, which remains dominated by Apple (39%), Samsung (30%), and LG (12%).
Here's the breakdown – please turn phone sideways to see the entire chart:
