Smartphone sales by Samsung and LG combined to give Android a much-needed boost in the United States market over rival iOS. Android’s hold of the US market was up by 2.8% to top 64.9% in what Kantar calls “a June quarter” i.e the 3 months ending May vis-a-vis the 3 months ending April. We already covered the “May quarter” stats and you can have a look at them here.
As you will note from those May statistics, Android was not doing so well in Europe. Well, at least in Europe’s biggest markets. Nothing has changed in the one month since Kantar’s last data was released. If anything, vendors are finding it much easier trying to woo iOS users to jump ship than Android users from one OEM to another. That is because iOS is prevalent in Europe where Android’s share of the market dipped by 2.9%.
According to Kantar, the Galaxy S6 is the third best-selling smartphone in the US market after the Apple iPhone 6 and last year’s Samsung flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S5. Thanks to stellar Galaxy S6 sales, Samsung’s share of the US smartphone market rose by 3 percentage points to stand at 55% in the June quarter when compared with the May quarter. LG helped Android’s share of the pie increase by doubling its share of the US smartphone market year over year. This could be as a result of strong demand for LG’s latest flagship smartphone, the G4, which has been praised by critics for its display and excellent camera. In fact, it is LG’s G4 that is widely viewed as the real threat to the strong duo that is the Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge other than the obvious threat, the iPhone 6. HTC and its lacklustre One M9 have had trouble appeasing the sensitive smartphone spirits and its share of the smartphone market dipped year over year. The same was the case for Motorola.
Things were not very different in China where Apple still holds the top position when it comes to smartphone marketshare thanks to record iPhone 6 sales. However, it is Xiaomi’s rise that should have everyone worried. It trumped well known brands like Motorola’s parent, Lenovo and traditional big names like ZTE for the third position. It is only a hair away from Huawei which stands second.
