Half of Britain now owns a smartphone
Android in the hands of a quarter of the population
Agentless Backup is Not a Myth
Almost half of the UK population now owns a smartphone, and Google's OS, Android, is leading the race.
According to research from market watcher Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, smartphone sales are on the rise. App-friendly handsets now make up 69.1 per cent of all mobile phone purchases, it said. And 43.8 per cent of Britons own one.
Google's Android OS can be found under the hood of half those handsets, with RIM's BlackBerry OS taking 22.5 per cent and Apple's iOS 18.5 per cent.
The figures are somewhat skewed, though, as data is based on a period that ended two days prior to Apple's iPhone 4S launch, which has undoubtedly boosted the company's position after it shipped record amounts of the latest iPhone.
Either way, the influx of Android has certainly made it the most adopted platform, with its share of the UK market rising from 29 per cent to 49.9 per cent from the same period in 2010.
HTC took the lead in Q3, accounting for 45 per cent of Android shipments, with Samsung taking a 38 per cent share.
Other manufacturers are lagging behind. Sony Ericsson dropped to 8.5 per cent over the three months to October, down from 25.2 per cent. Now that Sony has bought-out Ericsson's share of the company, it'll be interesting to see how it plans to tackle the decline.
Meanwhile, Nokia is fighting its corner with the upcoming Lumia 800 expected to boost the uptake for Microsoft's Windows Phone platform, which currently holds just 1.4 per cent of smartphone sales here in the UK. ®
COMMENTS
"And 43.8 per cent of Britons own one"
Is that strictly true? Does the research actually show how many individual people have (and use) at least one smartphone?
Or is it based on the number of smartphones in use? If it's the latter then that 43.8 percent will be out by a fair bit, I know plenty of people who have more than one smartphone.
Or is it based on the number of phones sold? Most smartphone owners I know go through at least one a year and the old ones are all in the back of a drawer.
And the Daily Mail award for statistics goes to...
First off, assuming one phone = one person is a mistake. UK mobile penetration is greater than 100%, so what brand of phone do these "imaginary" people use?
Then, using an instantaneous measure (market share) to divide up a cumulative one (installed base) is also incorrect.
I do wish Statistics was better taught in schools. And it really should be on more Journalism courses. Politicians and PR people, however, know more about stats than they'll ever let on...
I don't own one
I have a Sony Ericsson dumbphone, and I really love it, I won't upgrade anytime soon, as I enjoy using the phone and it has a good enough camera for me and it's really thin.
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