New data from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech shows that smartphone users ditching Android devices in recent months helped drive iOS growth across the EU. The data tracked the EU’s biggest markets in 1Q15— Great Britain, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain— and shows iOS grew 1.8 percentage points from last year to 20.3% market share this year. That includes around 32.4% of new Apple customers switching from an Android device, according to the report, while Android lost 3.1 percentage points during the quarter:
“In the first quarter of 2015, the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus continued to attract consumers across Europe, including users who previously owned an Android smartphone,” reported Carolina Milanesi, chief of research at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech. “On average, across Europe’s big five countries during the first quarter, 32.4% of Apple’s new customers switched to iOS from Android.”
Apple also experienced growth in other markets during the quarter. In China, for example, Kantar says Apple grew from 17.9% in Q1 last year to 26.1% this year. The report notes that represents “25% of smartphone sales in urban China’s 2,000 to 4,000 RMBs income bracket — a 10.1 percentage point increase from the same period in 2014.”
In the US, however, Android saw minimal growth during the quarter:
In the U.S., Android reached a market share of 58.1% — a 0.2 percentage point gain over 1Q14.“ LG had a particularly good first quarter with its share growing to 10.8% from 7.4% a year ago, while Samsung was holding on to second place as it prepared for the launch of its new Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge in April,” Milanesi said.
In its latest earnings report from late last month covering calendar Q1 2015, Apple reported sales of 61.1 million iPhones, up from 43.7 million units in the year ago quarter. Kantar adds today that “ iPhone 6 and 6 Plus already represent 18% of all iPhones in use in the U.S., and 64% of the iPhone installed base is an iPhone 5 or newer.”
