14 DAY TRIAL // We reported a few months ago that, while Windows Phone platform had a bigger market share in Europe than in other regions, the operating system hadn’t been doing that well since the beginning of the year.
We assumed that the reasons for Windows Phone’s slight decrease in market share had been the lack of new devices and probably the launch of new flagship smartphones from multiple Android handset manufacturers such as Samsung, HTC, and Sony Mobile.
Once the Lumia 630, Lumia 635, and Lumia 930 hit the market, things seem to have been improved for Windows Phone, at least according to Kantar’s new statistics for the last 12 weeks.
Keep in mind though that the current statistic takes into consideration the Windows Phone smartphone market until June 30, so everything that happened this month is not reflected in Kantar’s numbers yet.
Considering that the Lumia 930 is barely making its way to more countries and that Microsoft has just started the rollout of Windows Phone 8.1 update for several smartphones, we expect Windows Phone to do much better than Kantar says.
For those who don’t remember, Windows Phone market share in Europe was at around 8.4% about 3 months ago. However, Kantar claims that Microsoft’s operating system now accounts for 8.8% smartphone share in Europe.
While not that impressive, Windows Phone’s market share’s slight increase is likely to become more obvious in the coming months. In the meantime, Android has already reached 74% market share at the end of June, from 72.4%, while iOS is now down at 15.3% from 17.5%.
France is the country where Microsoft’s Windows Phone has the largest market share, at 10.6%, followed by Italy with 10.1%, the UK with 9.6%, Spain with 7.5%, and Germany with 6.4%.
Unfortunately, in the United States the situation did not improve at all – on the contrary. Kantar reported three months ago that Windows Phone market share in the US accounted for 4.7%, while the current infographics show that the platform is now at only 3.8% market share.
The same goes for Australia, where Windows Phone market share is down to 5.3% from 6.7%. One of the largest smartphone markets in the world, China, seems to be reluctant towards the Windows Phone platform.
After reporting a 0.8% market share for Windows Phone three months ago, Kantar’s numbers show a very small improvement for the OS, which now accounts for 0.9% of the smartphone market in the mainland.