Global smartphone sales see Android rise and Windows fall

Google's mobile operating system has never been so dominant in the smartphone market while Microsoft's rival has never lagged so far behind, according to ComTech data for March to May 2016, published by Kantar. Now, more than three-quarters of the smartphones sold in western Europe are handsets running Android.

To varying degrees, Android now dominates markets for smartphone OS sales worldwide. In western Europe (Great Britain, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain), Android's market share reached a record 76.5 percent of total smartphone sales, a six-point increase year on year.

Note that Google holds a virtual monopoly in Spain, where Android accounts for 92.8 percent of smartphone sales (+2.9 points). This trend was also seen in China (79.3 percent, +2.4 points) and in the USA (68.5 percent, +3.6 points). In Japan, however, Android "only" accounts for 58.8 percent of sales (+6.2 points).

An increase in market share for Android inevitably means falling figures for iOS. Apple's mobile operating system saw its market share fall in almost all markets, with the notable exception of France, where the various models of iPhone now account for 21 percent of overall sales (+3.8 points).

In Europe, iOS saw an overall drop of 0.5 points for a market share of 18.3 percent. The fall was more marked in China (19.7 percent, -1.7 points), the USA (29.3 percent, -1.6 points) and Japan (40.6 percent, -4 points).

The outlook appears considerably less rosy for Microsoft, as the Windows mobile OS continues to lose market share all round, dropping to 4.6 percent of smartphone sales in Europe (-5 points), 1.6 percent in the USA (-1.9 points), 0.6 percent in China (-0.4 points), and 0.1 percent in Japan.

This information is based on research by the Kantar WorldPanel ComTech global consumer panel, which records data relating to the telecoms market in 12 countries. ComTech is the largest continuous research consumer mobile phone tracking panel of its kind in the world, conducting over one million interviews per year in Europe alone.