Why Apple’s iPhones are gaining ground on Android smartphone market share

Apple’s iPhone market share is closing the gap on Android following the release of the latest smartphone sales data for the first quarter of 2015 from Kantar Worldpanel Comtech.

In Australia, iOS growth was 5.3 per cent year-on-year to 38.4 per cent of the market to the end of March 2015 while Android’s share has slipped to 52.3 per cent.

iOS is only available on Apple’s iPhone while Android powers devices from other major manufacturers including Samsung, LG, Sony, HTC, Alcatel OneTouch, Motorola and Huawei.

It was a similar iOS growth story in other markets around the world including the US, Europe and China with Android switchers driving the growth.

In the US, Android’s market share sits at 58.1 per cent – a growth of 0.2 per cent since March 2014 with iOS at 36.5 per cent.

According to the Kantar Worldpanel ComTech report, 18 per cent of all phones being used in the US today are either and iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus with 65 per cent of the iPhone installed base being an iPhone 5 or newer.

In Europe’s five largest countries – Great Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Spain – iOS reached a 20.3 per cent market share with 32.4 per cent of Apple’s new customers coming from Android.

Android’s share in Europe dropped by 3.1 per cent to 68.4 per cent while iOS increased by 1.8 per cent.

This was driven by the larger screens of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus – a feature Android devices had over iPhone until Apple’s smartphones were released last year.

In urban China, iOS rose to 26.1 per cent – up from 17.9 per cent from the year before – and generating even more sales volume for Apple than the US.