Kantar Worldpanel and IDC results both show Android growth
Two sets of results suggest that sales of Android devices increased greatly in much of Europe in the first quarter of 2011.
IDC’s European Mobile Phone Tracker found that Android device sales grew 1,580% year-on-year to 7.9 million units from 470 thousand units a year ago. IDC said that Apple’s iOS increased 66% in 4Q10 compared to 4Q09 as more operators launched the iPhone4. The new Windows Phone 7 grew 100% sequentially, limited by the soft launch in most countries (English version only) and the lack of local languages, IDC said.
Backing that up were results obtained from consumer panels by Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, which indicated that Android has increased its share of smartphone sales in Great Britain, for example, to 37.4%, from 8.3 % a year ago.
Kantar found that even in markets where Symbian still dominates overll, Android is growing rapidly. In Germany Symbian remained the number 1 Smartphone platform, with a 30.5% market share, but this is down from 47.3% one year ago. Android saw an increase in its share of the market by 25 percentage points to move to a 28.8% share. In Italy Symbian has a majority share of 49.8%, with Android’s market share growing 16.2 percentage points to a 17.2% share. In France Android’s market share grew 25 percentage points, on a year on year on a quarterly basis.
As for iOS, Kantar reported a 25 point drop in market share in France, and in Britain a similar drop from 39% market share of smartphone OS to 22%.
“The last quarter of 2010 clearly shows the trends for the coming years in Western Europe. The Western European mobile phone market will be dominated by smartphones, and Android will be the king of the hill,” said Francisco Jeronimo, European mobile devices research manager, IDC. “Android surged from 4% to 31% market share in less than a year to become the market leader in 4Q10 and the fastest growing operating system ever. IDC estimates at that Android will grow at a 37% compound annual growth rate between 2010 and 2015 in Western Europe.”
IDC found that Nokia shipments dropped 11% year-on-year to 19.6 million units, and its market share slipped to 33% in 4Q10 from 39% in 4Q09. Samsung’s smartphone performance was not enough to reverse the decline in feature phones and total shipments fell 2% from the previous year, but rose 13% sequentially. Apple kept its market share despite the 66% year-on-year growth in shipments. Sony Ericsson shipments fell 15% year-on-year, despite the 3,121% growth in its Android smartphones. The phone maker shipped 2.2 million smartphones and 2 million feature phones. The X10 and X10 mini were top selling devices in most countries and operators. RIM‘s shipments increased 67% year-on-year to 3.8 million units from 2.3 million units a year ago.