14 DAY TRIAL // Android has improved a lot lately in the fight against iOS, and statistics have shown that Google’s mobile operating system has reached record shares in some countries while Apple’s has dropped every new month in the majority of markets.
This time, however, Kantar brings better news for Apple, as iOS has managed to return to growth after several months of decline. And yet, this doesn’t mean that Android is giving up, as significant increases have been recorded here too.
The biggest increase recorded by iOS in Europe took place in France, where it improved its sales share by 3.4 percent, reaching 20.2 percent in the three-month period ending June 2016 (versus the same period of 2015). Similar performance was experienced in the UK too, where it reached 37.2 percent, up 3.1 percent - the UK also continues to be Apple’s best iOS market in Europe right now.
Overall, EU5 figures show an increase of just 0.7 percent for iOS, but at least it’s an increase, with Apple’s platform now at 18.2 percent. Android continues to be the leader with 76.8 percent, up 5.5 percent.
In the United States, June 2016 trends changed, and while iOS improved, Android declined. iOS reached 31.8 percent, up 1.3 percent, while Android dropped 0.6 percent to 65.5 percent.
The biggest drop recorded by iOS was in Japan, where it lost 4.2 percentage points to settle at 38 percent, while Android posted an increase of 6.6 percent here to 61 percent.
All hail the iPhone 6s!
In case you’re wondering how come iOS increased even though Apple didn’t launch any new product, it’s because the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus are once again selling like hot cakes (for whatever reason - one of the possible explanations for this growth is the massive discounts that the 6s generation is getting across the world, including the US and Europe), so they managed to overtake the Samsung Galaxy S7 (and not the other way around, as it happened last month). The iPhone SE helped a lot too, becoming the third best-selling phone during the period.
“Combined sales of the iPhone 6s/6s Plus totalled 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%, contributing to the overall growth of iOS during the period,” Lauren Guenveur, Consumer Insight Director for Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, said.
Now everyone in the Apple community is confident that sky’s the limit for iOS, as the company is gearing up to introduce a new iPhone model and a new iOS version next month. But at the same time, new Android models are also launching, so it’ll be an interesting end of year for the mobile world.