iOS Takes Down Android as Q4 Numbers Show iPhone 6 Best selling Phone in US

Kantar Worldpanel ComTech has released its latest smartphone sales data for the fourth quarter of 2014, showing that Apple’s share of sales grew across the US, Europe and China during the holiday period.

The data shows that in the US, Apple iOS overtook Android for the first time Q4 2012, but not by much (0.1% margin). Throughout the holiday quarter, the iPhone 6 was the best-selling smartphone in the US and Samsung retained its number two spot in the vendor chart with the Galaxy S5 as the second best-selling smartphone.

Across Europe, Android’s share declined by 3.8 percentage points year-on-year to 66.1% while iOS rose by 6.2%. Great Britain had the biggest impact on the decline as iOS grew its share of sales by 13.1% compared to Q4 last year with Samsung, LG and Sony all losing market share both year over year and over the previous quarter.

The report shows that Windows Phone had seen some success across Europe in 2013 but continued to struggle in the latest period, recording minimal growth only in France and Germany.

In Urban China, Apple iOS grew share year-on-year at the expense of Android, while Xiaomi remained the bestselling brand in Q4. Apple’s share grew to 21.5% from 19% last year. Almost a quarter of Chinese consumers who bought an iPhone in the past three months were acquiring their first smartphone, compared to 16.5% for Q4 2013.

Smartphone penetration reached 59% in the US and 67% across Europe’s top five economies while emerging markets have seen less penetration - Brazil (35%) and Mexico (37%). Samsung’s brand loyalty remains the strongest within the Android ecosystem with an average of 62% across the US and big European markets.

Kantar Worldpanel ComTech’s smartphone OS market share is based on research extracted from the Kantar Worldpanel ComTech global consumer panel. ComTech is one of the largest continuous consumer research/mobile phone tracking system of its kind, conducting over one million interviews annually in Europe alone. ComTech tracks mobile phone behavior – including phone purchases, bills/airtime, source of purchase, and usage. It also delivers additional data to promote and understanding of the drivers of share changes, and consumer insight market dynamics. All consumer data referenced here excludes enterprise sales.