In stark contrast to the US where iOS is still holding its own, Android is largely pulling away in the mobile market share race in Europe. According to recent numbers released by Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, during March – May of this year, Android captured an average of 70% of mobile phone sales in across 5 key European markets (France, the UK, Germany, Spain and Italy). This is up close to 10 percentage points from last year. In France, Android sales were up 8.5 percentage points from last year, hitting approximately 62% for the period. Apple, which was the darling of the French mobile market not so long ago, saw its sales stagnate at roughly 18% for the period. In Europe, Apple looks to be strongest in the UK where its share of new sales stands at 30%.
Other than having built a solid Android ecosystem, it’s likely that the lower pricepoint of Android devices has also been a key driver in the rapid growth of Android sales in Europe. In fact, in Europe Android is currently strongest in Spain, a market with a very difficult economic climate, where Android posts its strongest numbers with a near monopoly… a massive, 92% of Android sales, up 8% from last year.
Another clear winner thanks to Android’s success is Samsung which, according to Numerama, is currently generating almost 50% of smartphone sales in Europe. On the flip side, the biggest losers in all this are, unsurprisingly, Blackberry, Windows phone and Nokia/Blackberry who all have painfully low share across all of the 5 EU markets included in the study. Unfortunately for them, they also saw Google’s Android handily beat them in many other markets around the globe (i.e. Mexico where Google’s share is +33% and Blackberry’s is -22%!).