The latest smartphone sales data from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, for the three months to December 2013, shows that Android ended the year as the top operating system across Europe with 68.6 per cent share, while Apple held second place with 18.5 per cent. Windows Phone continues to show high year-on-year growth, but its share of the European market has essentially remained flat at 10.3 per cent for the past three months.
Dominic Sunnebo, strategic insight director at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, commented: “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 per cent in USA, 29.9 per cent in Great Britain and 19 per cent 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.”
Smartphone % penetration in Great Britain stood at 69 per cent in December, with 85 per cent of devices sold in the past three months being smartphones.
