Kantar's Worldpanel ComTech surveys smartphone sales and computes a three month rolling average in major geographies globally, which partially consists of over one million interviews per year in Europe alone. In its latest findings Apple’s iPhone saw its market share decline from December to January in every country Kantar reported except for China, which had the highest iPhone share since July 2012, and Italy, which was flat month over month.
I believe it is worthwhile to analyze the month to month statistics as it gives an indication on how the current iPhone models are doing. While I expect Apple’s iPhone to still do extremely well not just in the March quarter but at least through 2015, it does appear that the initial spike in market share is at least leveling off and could revert to its traditional seasonal patterns. It should continue to garner the majority of smartphone profits even with the leveling off.
Apple’s US share fell 490 basis points month over month
Apple saw its US smartphone market share decrease from 47.7% in December to 42.8% in January. December’s 47.7% was the highest since December 2012’s 49.7% and the 490 basis point decline was a bit larger than the iPhone 5’s 380 basis point decline two years ago to 45.9% and was similar to Apple’s iPhone 5c’s and 5s’s 470 basis point decline to 39.2% the previous year.
After losing its top spot to iOS in the holiday quarter of 2014, Android bounced back in the US with a share of 51.9%. “Samsung was able to take its share to levels similar to January 2014 and LG also grew its share of sales year-on-year”, reported Carolina Milanesi, chief of research at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, The Galaxy S5 remained the second best selling smartphone with half the share of Apple’s iPhone 6 which held its number one position. In the latest period 13.9% of iOS customers in the US switched over from an Android device – up from 12.1% in the three-month ending in December.
Apple continued to gain share in China
From the Kantar data I’ve been tracking since June 2012 (available via this Google Doc) Apple’s smartphone share increased from 21.5% in December to 25.4% in January. Apple’s share almost doubled from 12.8% in June 2014 and is the highest since July 2012’s 26.3% share. The explosive growth in China's 4G networks is a definite plus for Apple.
“In urban China, Apple iPhone 6 was the best selling phone in the three months ending in January with a share of 9.5%”, explained Tamsin Timpson, strategic insight director at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech Asia. “Xiaomi had several smartphones in the top 10 chart with the RedMi Note its best selling device and the second most popular product behind the iPhone 6 which has a share of 8.9%”. Over the past three months, Apple continued to close the gap with Xiaomi, which remained the leading brand in urban China but with only a 2.2 percentage point advantage.
Apple’s share declined in Japan, Germany, UK, France and Spain
Apple’s smartphone share declined in Japan and in four of the five major European countries. While the iPhone’s share is still above 50% at 52.4% in Japan and is almost double its 27.1% in July 2014 it did fall by almost 800 basis points from 60.2% in December to 52.4% in January.
In the five major European countries Apple’s smartphone share registered the following:
- Germany: fell from 20.9% in December to 18.7%
- After peaking at 21.4% in November
- UK: fell from 42.0% in December to 40.1%
- After peaking at 42.5% in November
- France: fell from 23.0% in December to 20.2%
- Spain: fell from 12.9% in December to 10.4%
- Italy: stayed flat at 18.3% in December and January
