September 30 marked the end of Q3 2012 for a lot of companies, but it also marked the end of the quarter for a lot of analytics firms as well. One of these firms is Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, and today it delivered its report on the smartphone market as its stands at the end of Q3. It seems that Android has a worthy competitor in the iPhone 5, and even though there isn’t a threat of Android losing its massive market share lead anytime soon, Apple’s newest handset did manage to put a dent in Android’s growth in the US and UK.
According to Kantar’s report, which was relayed by TechCrunch, iOS was able to boost its market share in the US significantly during quarter 3, climbing 14.2 percentage points year-over-year from 21.5% to 35.7%. That climb can almost certainly be attributed to the launch of iPhone 5, even though it only went on sale at the very end of the quarter. By comparison, Android fell from 66.4% market share in Q3 2011 to 57.5% in Q3 2012.
In the UK it’s a bit of a different story – the iPhone 5 still managed to slow Android’s growth, it didn’t make Android lose any percentage points. iOS climbed almost ten full percentage points year-over-year, ending quarter 3 2012 at 28% market share, with Android managing to jump up 4.8 percentage points to 58.2% market share in the UK. Android made even bigger gains in the rest of Europe, gaining a whopping 16.2 percentage points to settle at 67.1% market share – much more than iOS can say, as it actually fell from 17.3% to 16.5% year-over-year across Europe.
So, the war between iOS and Android continues to rage on, with both operating systems making gains in different regions of the world. We’re excited to see the results of Q4 2012, since not only will that take the holiday shopping season into account, but it will be the first full quarter that the iPhone 5 is available. To say the least, it should be interesting, especially will all of those excellent-looking Android devices hitting shelves soon. Stay tuned.
