Analyst: iPhone 5 helps Apple gain market share in Europe

Apple's iPhone 5 is helping the company to grow its market share in Europe, with the company's iOS gaining ground in four of the five major European countries, according to the latest data from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech.

Apple's iPhone 5 has helped it gain market share in Europe.

According to Kantar's latest 12-week study, which ended Oct. 28, Apple performed particularly strongly in the UK, where it now holds a 32.7 per cent share of the smartphone market. However, Android still retains a 54.2 per cent share of the UK market, up 7.6 per cent from 2011. Apple's market share jumped year-over-year in France, Italy, Spain and the UK, but fell in Germany, according to Kantar.

The iPhone is still struggling to gain traction in Spain and Germany, according to Kantar analyst Dominic Sunnebo.

"Germany remains a tough market for Apple with its share falling by 5.1 percentage points over the past year. The Samsung Galaxy S III has taken almost a quarter of the country's smartphone sales over the past 12 weeks to boost Android yet further," he said in a statement. "In Italy, strong sales of the Nokia Lumia 610, the fourth-best-selling handset over the past 12 weeks, and the Nokia Lumia 800, the seventh-best-selling, have helped drive Windows [Phone's] share up to 11.7 per cent--the highest across Europe."

Kantar also noted that the iPhone 5 has boosted iOS back to the No. 1 in the United States. Apple now has a 48.1 per cent share of U.S. smartphone sales compared with Android which has 46.7 per cent.

Kantar's study claims that the popularity of the iPhone 5 has been significantly helped by the inclusion of a bigger 4-inch screen and LTE capability, both of which appear to have had a large impact on the ways consumers are using their devices compared to previous models.

"Previous Kantor Worldpanel ComTech data has shown that bigger screens make a significant impact on the reality of how consumers actually use their device, and the latest usage data shows this is clearly the case for the iPhone 5," Sunnebo said. "The usage data is likely to come down over time as iPhone 5 users at this stage will inevitably be early adopters and therefore more engaged with the category, but initial signs are very positive."

 For more:
- see this Kantor Worldpanel ComTech release
- see this chart (PDF)

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