Android grabs smartphone majority in key markets

For the first time ever, Android has accounted for over half of the overall smartphone sales in key global markets over a 12 week period.

Kantar Worldpanel ComTech says that Android’s OS accounted for over 50 per cent of the sector in Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, US and Australia.

In some regions the win was by an even greater margin – in Spain it claimed 84.1 per cent, in Germany it was 68.5 per cent and in Britain 57.2 per cent.

We are seeing much of the Android sales growth being driven by consumers trading up from feature phones to smartphones,” Kantar’s consumer insight directorDominic Sunnebo stated.

Android handsets currently offer an easier platform to enable these consumers to upgrade, as many first time smartphone consumers state ‘price of handset’ and ‘multimedia capabilities’ as their main reason for choosing an Android device.

Our data shows that Android has a higher share of those consumers spending under 50 on buying their handset across the vast majority of countries we cover.

Smartphone consumers are much more loyal to their brand of handset and carrier than feature phone consumers, highlighting the importance of capturing feature phone owners when they are starting to look to change their handset.

It’s also interesting to note that although Android’s share is high in the USA market, it has decreased by 6.8% points over the year. This trend contrasts Apple’s growth, which is a reflection of a successful iPhone 4S release and the first time availability of the iPhone 4 and 4S on Sprint.”