New figures indicate important drop in iOS adoption

Apr 6, 2016 08:48 GMT  ·  By

Apple is said to have an innovation crisis, as the company has barely launched “revolutionary” products in the last couple of years and is more focused on reinventing products that were designed a few years ago, and this whole struggle translates into dropping adoption figures in key markets.

iOS seems to be impacted by the rather weak demand for the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, the two models unveiled in September 2015 as refreshes of the core devices launched one year before.

Demand for new iPhones has dropped and is expected to fall below the 200 million threshold this year, and new data provided by Kantar seems to indicate that more users are moving to Android these days.

Apple’s iOS lost users in the largest markets and Android’s domination is only increasing with improved shares in almost every single country out there.

European performance

In Europe, for example, Android has posted increases in every single market, achieving a growth of no less than 6.7 percent in the EU5 region (February 2015 versus February 2016).

The biggest change was recorded in Italy where Android improved its share by 12.1 percentage points, reaching a record 78.4 percent. In the same country, iOS actually lost 3.2 percent and dropped to 14.3 percent. In France, Android scored an increase of 9.1 percent to settle at 71.8 percent, while iOS went down 1.7 percent to 19.9 percent.

The only country where iOS actually improved its share was Spain, as the platform grew 0.4 points here to achieve 9.1 percent. Android also scored an increase of 2.0 percent to reach no more, no less than 90 percent. This means that in Spain, 9 out of 10 phones are powered by Android, which is impressive to say the least.

US performance

The US continues to be iOS’ key market, but things are going too well here either. Android is currently powering 58.9 percent of the devices in the country, a 3.3 percent increase over February 2015, while iOS lost 0.5 percent of its share and dropped to 38.3 percent.

The other mobile platforms there don’t even count because Windows declined 2.2 percent to 2.6 percent, while the “Other” category went down to no less than 0.2 percent.

Kantar says that current buyers are not interested to spend money on a high-end device and that’s why Android is growing so fast, as there are far more affordable choices when it comes to Google’s OS.

But this isn’t entirely bad news for Apple, as the iPhone SE could also experience growing sales and thus help the iOS recovery on the short term.

“In the US, the average spend on purchasing a smartphone in the three months ending February was $352. For Android buyers that meant that roughly 69% of consumers reported spend under $350, while for iOS buyers, that share was 39%. This represents a unique opportunity for the newly launched iPhone SE, which, at a $399 price point, will likely appeal to more cost-conscious first-time smartphone buyers who might otherwise be more inclined to pick up an Android smartphone, and to the sizable installed base of iPhone owners who have not yet upgraded,” Lauren Guenveur, mobile analyst for Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, explained.

The iPhone SE will be included in the next figures provided by Kantar, so we’ll see how the new 4-inch device manages to support iOS adoption when the new statistics become available.

OS performance in the 3-month period ending Feb 2016
OS performance in the 3-month period ending Feb 2016

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Sales of new iPhones could fall below 200 million
OS performance in the 3-month period ending Feb 2016
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