iPhone Closes Gap on Android in May, Becomes T-Mobile's Best Selling Smartphone

According to research firm Kantar Worldpanel, while Android still leads smartphone sales at 52%, the firm pegs Apple at a close 41.9% (up 3.5% from the same period last year). These numbers are derived from a three month period ending in May.

Through the 3 month period ending May 2013, Android continues to lead smartphone sales at 52%. Close behind is iOS with 41.9% of sales. Windows remains in third with 4.6% of sales, up 0.9% versus the same period last year.

Verizon leads smartphone sales at 34.6% while AT&T is in second place with 29%. Sprint is in third with 12.7%. T-Mobile still remains in fourth with only 10.1% of the smartphone sales. The firm believes the availability of the iPhone on T-Mobile has caused the iOS sales increase. In fact, the iPhone 5 is already the best selling smartphone at T-Mobile and accounted for 31% of T-Mobile's smartphone sales. However, this is still relatively low when compared to AT&T's 60.5% of AT&T and Verizon 43.8%.


iOS’ strength on T-Mobile appears to be the ability to attract first time smartphone buyers, upgrading from a featurephone. Of T-Mobile consumers who bought an iOS device since it launched on the carrier, 53% had previously owned a featurephone, well above the market average of 45% of iOS owners who previously owned a featurephone.

Nearly a third of T-Mobile customers that plan on changing their device in the next year plan to upgrade to the iPhone.

On the other hand, ComScore released their report a few weeks ago and had Android at 52% as well, however they had placed iOS at 39.2% of the market share.

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