iPhone Sales Grow in US, EU, Japan as Android Smartphone Sales Drop: Kantar

The latest smartphone OS sales data from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech shows that iPhone's market share in the US has climbed 6.4 percent year-on-year in the three months ended November last year. The data shows that early holiday sales boosted the already growing iOS market share to 43.5 percent in the US while Android's share came down 5.1-percent on-year to 55.3-percent during the same time period in the region.

The Android sales have declined in the US, Great Britain, and France while iOS made gains across most regions during the aforementioned three months, Kantar Worldpanel pointed out in its report. "iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, and iPhone 6s were the three most popular smartphones in the US at the beginning of the holiday period, for a combined 31.3 percent share. The Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge were the fourth and fifth best-selling phones in the US, with Samsung capturing 28.9 percent of smartphone sales," Kantar said in its report.

Separately, sales for iPhone models grew in France, Italy, Spain, the UK, Japan, Australia, and the USA. The smartphones by Apple registered a strong 9.1 percent growth in the UK, mostly because the share of Windows Phone came down 7 percent on-year for the three months ended November. Android smartphones' share also declined 1.7 percent year-on-year for this region in the same period. In the EU5 countries (i.e. France, Italy, Germany, Spain, and the UK), share for both Android and iOS increased year-on-year mostly on account of decrease in the share of Windows Phone.

A big let-down for the Cupertino-based company came from China as the iOS share dropped down 5.4 percent on-year to 19.9 percent. "However, growth for iOS was up 2.8 percentage points over the previous three-month period, driven by sales of iPhone 7," Kantar added.

"Nearly 80 percent of all smartphones sold in Urban China during the three months ending November 2016 were Android, as local brands continued to dominate the market," Tamsin Timpson, Strategic Insight Director at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech Asia, was quoted as saying in the report.

Interestingly, Oppo delivered a strong growth in China as the company accounted for 12.9 percent of smartphone sales. "Importantly for iOS and Apple, iPhone 7 became the best-selling device in Urban China at 6.6 percent, pushing Oppo R9 to second place at 4.7 percent," Kantar said.