Apple's Smartphone Market Share Slips in Most Countries [Chart]

A new research report from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech finds that Apple's smartphone share has slipped in most countries for the three months ending December 2013 year over year.

Android finished the year as the top operating system in Europe with 68.6% share. Apple came in second with 18.5% share and Windows remained flat at 10.3% for the past three months.

Dominic Sunnebo, strategic insight director at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, comments: “Android finished 2013 strongly, showing year-on-year share growth across 12 major global markets including Europe, USA, Latin America, China and Japan. Apple has lost share in most countries compared with this time last year, but importantly it has held strong shares in key markets including 43.9% in USA, 29.9% in Great Britain and 19.0% in China.


“Windows Phone has now held double digit share across Europe for three consecutive months. Unfortunately for Nokia the European smartphone market is only growing at 3% year on year so success in this market has not been enough to turn around its fortunes – reflected in its recent disappointing results. Its performance also deteriorated toward the end of 2013 in the important growth markets of China, USA and Latin America.”

Notably, Samsung's European share is down 2.2% and in China its share stayed flat. Apple obtained an impressive 68.7% market share in Japan thanks to a deal with NTT DoCoMO.

Smartphone % penetration in Great Britain stood at 69% in December, with 85% of devices sold in the past three months being smartphones. 34% of smartphones bought in December were gifts, up from 30% in 2012. Samsung was the top gifted smartphone manufacturer with 30.7%, followed by Apple at 28.4% and Nokia at 17.6%.

More details in the chart below...


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