Kantar has released today its latest smartphone OS data in the three months ending July 2016 in most regions, and as you can expect Windows Phone is still not doing so well. In the US, Windows phones claimed a 2.4% sales market share during the period (down 1.4% year-over-year) while iOS was the only major mobile OS to record a small 1.2 percentage point increase compared to the same period a year ago. Remember that these figures represent the numbers of phones sold during the period, and not the number of phones in use, etc.
However, with a 31.3% OS share iOS is still far from Android’s 65% share in the country. Lauren Guenveur, Consumer Insight Director for Kantar Worldpanel ComTech added that Apple’s iPhones are still selling very well in the country:
“The iPhone 6s remains the top-selling device in the market with an 11% share, something we expect to continue through the launch of the next iPhone, with price reductions incentivizing people to upgrade their current phones even if they might not feel a need for the ‘latest and greatest. Interestingly, the iPhone 6, which is approaching the end of its expected lifecycle, is still the sixth best-selling phone in the US, achieving 4.1% of smartphone sales in the latest period.”
In the EU5, Windows Phone recorded a 4.2% OS share (down 6.7% year-over-year) and Microsoft’s mobile OS lost nearly ten points of percentage in former Windows Phone strongholds such as Italy (down 9.6 percent year-over year), France (down 7.7 percent) and the UK (down 7.6 percent) compared to the same period a year ago. Dominic Sunnebo, Business Unit Director for Kantar Worldpanel ComTech Europe shared the following details about the performance of iOS and Android in the old continent:
“In Great Britain, iOS achieved a 5.2 percentage point increase vs. a year ago, to account for 38% of smartphone sales in the three months ending July 2016. This is the strongest growth in share since the three-month period ending September 2015. Android also posted growth, with 57.3% of smartphone sales, up from 54.4% in the previous year.
In the three months ending June, although iOS returned to growth in EU5, it still had slight share losses in Italy and Spain. However, during the three months ending July, iOS share increased in both markets to 12.7% and 9.2%, respectively. Android also continued to achieve a share increase, while the largest year-on-year losses were experienced by Windows.”
A few additionnal facts about Windows Phone’s performance in the last three months:
- Among the 9 countries analyzed by Kantar, Japan is the only one market where Windows Phone claimed a very small growth year-over-year (+0.5 points of percentage), but its 0.6% OS share remains completely anecdotic.
- Compared Kantar’s numbers for Q2 2016, Windows Phone is actually up is several markets such as the US (+0.8 points of percentage), France (+0.8 points), Japan (+0.3 points) and Spain (+0.2 points). We’ll have to wait for Kantar’s next smartphone data to see if Windows Phone confirms this surprising performance, but don’t keep your hopes too high though. As a reminder, Windows Phone claimed a 0.6% worldwide OS share in Gartner’s latest worldwide smartphone sales data.
We’ll continue to follow how Windows Phone performs in the market in the coming months, and we can’t wait to see if the upcoming launch of the HP Elite x3 in select markets as well as the discounted prices of Microsoft’s fifth generation Lumia phones could move the needle. Let us know what you think about Kantar’s latest smartphone OS data in the comments below.
