iPhone 5 totters at the top as Samsung thrusts up UK mobe chart
But older Apples are still holding their own
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Apple’s three most recent mobiles together took more than a quarter of smartphones sales in Britain during the first three months of 2013, we're told.
The iPhone 5 was the period’s most popular handset, but the Cupertino giant's UK market share continues to be eroded by Android - and even Windows Phone 8.
Google’s Linux-derived OS Android now commands 58.4 per cent of the UK smartphone market. Microsoft’s has seven per cent, up from the 2.9 per cent it had in Q1 2012. Back then, Google had less than 50 per cent of this market, Apple more than half. Now Cupertino commands less than a third - 28.9 per cent - according to Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, a market watcher that puts together its figures by asking phone users what they bought.
The iPhone 5 accounted for 15 per cent of the smartphones acquired in Q1 2013, but Samsung’s Galaxy S III wasn’t far behind: it took 11.4 per cent. The iPhone 4 and 4S are still doing reasonably well, racking up numbers - 4.9 per cent and 7.5 per cent, respectively - which are akin to their immediate competitors: Samsung’s Galaxy S III Mini, Ace, Ace II and S II, and Google’s LG-made Nexus 4. Respectively, these other devices had UK shares of 5.7 per cent, 5.4 per cent, 3.4 per cent, 3.4 per cent and 3.6 per cent during Q1, Kantar Worldpanel ComTech said.
The numbers show that Apple’s older phones are still popular, and that they’re holding their own against rival second-tier smartphones. Perhaps Apple’s problem is not so much growing consumer interest in Android but that it just doesn’t have a sufficient number of models on the market to stand out effectively from the number Samsung has put on the table.
The big market share leads shown by the iPhone 5 and the Galaxy S III show the UK smartphone market is a two-tier one: the top-end, latest phones fighting each other and, separately, the remainder sorting it out among themselves. Apple may be right at the top, but it’s hard to see it staying there in the short term.
The iPhone 5 is now battling the Galaxy S4 and, to a lesser extent, the HTC One - though HTC’s absence from the Q1 2013 smartphone top ten shows it will have to work hard to get up there into the top three with Apple and Samsung.
The S4 will clearly go straight to the top of the Q2 chart, and is almost certaingly going to displace the iPhone 5. Apple isn’t expected to release its own next-gen model until the autumn, giving Samsung six months to cement a lead.
Microsoft’s UK market share gain, meanwhile, comes largely on the back of Nokia’s latest smartphones, though none of them sold well enough to make Kantar Worldpanel ComTech’s Q1 2013 top ten. BlackBerry - aka RIM - did, but only just. Its Curve 9320’s two per cent market share was enough to put in tenth place. BlackBerry’s overall UK OS share is 5.1 per cent.
Compare that to the US, where BlackBerry is now down to 0.9 per cent of the smartphone OS market, and Windows Phone rose year on year, from 3.7 per cent to 5.6 per cent. Over there, Android and Apple dominate, in almost equal measure: their shares are, according to Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, respectively 49.3 per cent and 43.7 per cent.
Has the Galaxy S4, its US debut recently delayed, the ability to force a bigger gap between the two OS’ shares before the iPhone 6 appears? ®
COMMENTS
Highly Rated
Back from the brink?
Great news for Nokia, and good for everyone to have a third player in the market.. I hope their market share continues to rise.
Blimey
Eadon's on a role on this topic. Same old, same old though. It appears the needle is stuck.
Re: Back from the brink?
@Eadon - you're right, I don't trust stats... except those I can be certain of, such as those my own systems generate.
Like I said, every time someone starts one of my games on their phone, it checks in with my website, sending me the phone's ID (unless, of course, connectivity is not available). Said website then either creates a record of the new ID or updates the "last access" date of an existing ID.
I see a steady rate of both new ID activations and returning IDs every day. Moreover, my games are not huge hits (sadly) that can sustain a listing at the very top of the marketplace (the self-fulfilling prophecy), nor can I afford the marketing to promote them. Except for times when I luck out and get some marketplace featuring, there are very few peaks and troughs in my stats.
If your first argument were true (marketplace dump), I would expect to see a surge in my activation stats. If your second were true (high return rate), I would expect to see high numbers of one-time activations with no reactivations.
I'm not saying that 7% is accurate by any stretch of the imagination, but the fact that I have a consistent stream of activations and reactivations would indicate that there is a slowly but steadily increasing number of people buying and then continuing to use WinPhones.
Re: Not out of the woods yet...
"each time they sell a phone, they simply create a dissatisfied customer, who won't go back. Why? The phones suck, Nokia hardware is not state of the art any more, but a generation behind. The operating system also sucks."
So when does this Eadon report come out?
I have 3 friends on WinPho (all Nokia) and they're all very happy. Do you know why? Because the phones do exactly what they need them to do, and they do it well.
These are not people who want to customise their phones, and they don't need whizz-bang features. Essentially, they would also have been happy with the older BBs (can't say I've looked at BB10/QNX yet).
True, it might not be the demographic that MS were hoping for, but I can see it being a good growth area for them.
Like it or not, WP8 is a functional, simple, and (arguably) elegant OS for a phone.
And what do you mean by "state of the art" hardware? Nokia has the best camera sensor and microphones that I'm aware of (although, the HTC One camera looks to be getting closer).
Re: Back from the brink?
It seems have a good product at the right price helps :)
