Dominic Sunnebo, Consumer Insight Director – Global, Kantar Worldpanel ComTech says: “If you have any interest in technology, the phenomenon that is Android is unlikely to have passed you by. It has been widely reported that Android is challenging the traditional dominance of Apple’s iOS, RIM and Symbian in the smartphone sector, but our market share figures reveal that far from playing catch up, Android is now dominating the sector in many key territories. What is also clear is that neither Android nor Apple’s iOS are currently stealing many customers from each other - Symbian, RIM and Windows beware.”
The vast majority of new Android and Apple iOS consumers came from a non-smartphone background. For example in Great Britain 74.9% of iOS and 73.8% of Android’s new customers previously owned a non-smartphone. However there is some switching between the smartphone manufacturers, with 17.3% of new Android customers coming from Symbian, 6.3% from Windows and 1.6% from RIM.
Interestingly, whilst the new CEO of Nokia plans to phase out the Symbian platform over the coming years, it is still generating substantial sales in a number of countries, such as Italy and Germany where it is number one in the Smartphone OS market, commanding 49.8% and 30.5 % of share respectively.
Dominic continues: “Nokia’s recently announced strategic partnership with Microsoft means they are looking to Windows 7 to spearhead them both back into becoming a serious force in the smartphone sector. Whilst it is still undoubtedly early days, Microsoft continues to lose share in all key country markets – we eagerly await the first Nokia Windows device to see how this will shake up the market.”