Apple and Google’s Android have been locked in constant combat for years, with each one fighting for dominance in the smartphone market. Now it looks like Android has taken Australia back from Apple, according to the latest data from Kantar Worldpanel.
Android’s share passes 50%
Yolanda Redrup of the Financial Review reports that the data indicates that Android held a 53.8% share of smartphone sales in Australia. Apple’s sales in the country were 36.8% during the first quarter of the year. In the quarter before that, Apple dominated smartphone sale in Australia with 45.1%, compared to Android’s 43.7% share.
When looking at the numbers from year over year comparisons, Android’s market share fell 7 percentage points in the country, apparently losing out to Apple. According to Kantar, Apple’s share of smartphone sales grow by 6.7 percentage points year over year. Windows Phone also stole a bit of share from Android, as its share of smartphone sales in Australia edged upward by 1 percentage point year over year.
Android also stealing share from Apple in the U.S.
Kantar’s data also indicates that in the U.S., Android also gained ground against Apple on both a quarter over year and year over year basis. In the first quarter, Android held 62.4% of smartphone sales in the U.S., while Apple’s share slipped to 33.2%.
Unsurprisingly, Apple saw its biggest increase in sales in China, as iOS sales climbed from 17.5% last year to 24.4% in April of this year. In Europe, Android continued to dominate the market, holding a 70.5% share of the sales market, although Google’s operating system declined by 2.3 percentage points quarter over quarter, apparently losing those points to Apple.
Windows Phone saw particular strength in Europe, as it held a 13.3% share of smartphone sales in Italy as of April. In France, Microsoft’s mobile operating system had a 12% share of smartphone sales.
Waiting to see what May brings
The data from April does not include any sales of Samsung’s Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge, so May will be a very telling month, noted Kantar’s research chief, Carolina Milanesi. Whenever Samsung or Apple puts out a new smartphone, typically they steal sales share from each other.
Early Kantar data suggests that the Galaxy S6 enjoys wide popularity.
