14 DAY TRIAL // Fresh numbers published by Kantar for the mobile market in the three-month period ending August 2017 show that iOS has recorded a major increase this summer, with Android sales share dropping substantially in several key markets.
In the United States, for example, iOS improved 3.7 percent versus the same time of the previous year, now reaching a sales share of 35 percent, while Android dropped 2.0 percent to 63.2 percent.
In the EU5 period, both Android and iOS increased to 80.2 percent and 18.4 percent, respectively, but in China, which continues to be the largest mobile market on the globe, Google’s mobile operating system collapsed substantially.
Android accounted for 82 percent of the phones sold in China during the mentioned interval, down 4 percent from 2016, while Apple’s iOS improved 4.3 percent to reach 17.7 percent.
The more surprising thing is that Apple has managed to increase its sales share before the launch of the iPhone 8, which means that the majority of models sold were actually iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus.
Android going strong in the UK
Kantar says Samsung’s Android phones performed particularly well in the United Kingdom where the Galaxy S8 experienced increasing sales, mostly as a result of local promotions. Samsung’s share in the UK increased to 38.4 percent in the three months ending August 2017.
“More than one in four Galaxy S8 buyers cited a specific promotion as a key purchase influencer, and almost half said that a good deal on the price of the phone was key to their purchase. Both of these metrics experienced a large increase over the last two months of the period,” said Dominic Sunnebo, Global Business Unit Director at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech.
In China, Huawei continues to be number one with 31.1 percent, followed by BBK Electronics, the company behind Oppo and Vivo brands. And yet, the iPhone 7 and the iPhone 7 Plus were the two best-selling models in urban China in the said period.
Better iPhone sales are expected in the next set of statistics as well, with Apple introducing the new-generation model likely to convince more Android users to jump ship.
