Android Beating Apple's iPhone 4S Sales Again

Android is back at the top of the UK's smartphone market, after the jump in sales of Apple's iPhone 4S replaced its lead over Christmas. New figures from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech covering the 12 weeks to 19th February 2012 indicate that phones running Android comprised 48.5% of smartphones sold, as the proportion of smartphones in the overall mobile sales mix rose to 73.2%. But the smartphone sector is in unrest, with the company's data showing that just over half (51.6%) of people who bought a smartphone in that period already owned one €“ so less than half were bought by feature phone users moving up to the new platform. Also, switching between platforms such as Android, BlackBerry, Symbian and Apple's iOS is extremely common: just over half (54.1%) of smartphone owners who bought a new device changed platform. Most of those who changed shifted away from Nokia's Symbian, either to Android or iOS. Blackberry is also seeing an outflow of upgraders, who are shifting to the same two platforms. Among those upgrading from feature phones, the biggest flow is to Android, with almost equal switchers to iOS and Blackberry.

Dominic Sunnebo, the global consumer insight director at Kantar ComTech, said Android may have hit a proverbial wall. "We've seen it stay around the 45%-50% mark for the past few months, but there's no sign of it going above that," he told the Guardian newspaper. He thinks that the easy pickings to be had from previous smartphone owners who moved away from Nokia's Symbian platform €“ "which has essentially vanished from the market" €“ which could mean that in the future, the struggle for market share will be much all the more competitive. Apple's share of sales, having risen to 34% in the 12 weeks to 26 December 2011, fell back to 28.7% €“ although that is higher than the 22.7% it made up over the same period in 2011, when both Android and the BlackBerry platform were ahead of it.The Blackberry share rose slightly compared to the 12-week December period, from 16.1% to 17.1%. Together those three platforms comprised 94.3% of smartphone sales. The figures do not include sales to businesses, and so probably understate sales for RIM, said Sunnebo. Overall, the company estimates that 51.3% of the British population now owns a smartphone. Kantar ComTech compiles its data from a worldwide panel of 87,000 people €“ 15,000 in the UK €“ balanced according to country population, who are polled regularly on the devices they use.