Android’s market share grows in Q1 as iOS loses its footing

During the first quarter of 2016, Android was the mobile platform of choice for smartphone buyers in the US, EU5 (Great Britain, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain) and Urban China. The latest numbers from Kantar World Panel show that Android’s market share for Q1 increased. In the US market, Android sales increased from 58.2% to 65.5%, but Google’s mobile platform solidified its dominance in Urban China and the EU5 by growing from 71% to 77% and 68.5% to 75.6% respectively.

“This is the strongest growth for Android across the EU5 in more than two years,” said Lauren Guenveur, mobile analyst for Kantar Worldpanel ComTech. “What’s more, the growth is coming not just from one or two players, but from different brands and ecosystems, varying from region to region.”

While most of us would have liked to see Android’s growth associated with a massive decline in iOS devices, sales of Microsoft’s Windows devices took a bigger hit during the quarter. In the EU5 Market, sales of new Windows devices fell from 9.9% to a mere 4.9% while iOS’s market share in the region dropped from 20.2% to 18.9%.

In the US, the big winner was Samsung. Despite being available for less than one month during Q1, the Samsung Galaxy S7 accounted for 4.2% of all smartphone sales in the market. The 2015 Samsung Galaxy S6 also sold well due to price drops from service providers looking to offload excess inventory to make room for the Galaxy S7.

Surprisingly, Motorola has a year-over-year market share increase in the US, growing from 6.9% to 9.8%. But Android’s market dominance is felt the most in China where Google’s mobile OS picked up an additional 5.9 percentage points, accounting for 77.7% of all smartphone sales during Q1. While Apple fared well in China in 2015, sales of iOS smartphones took a tumble from 26.1% to 21.1% when compared to the same quarter last year.

With Android’s market share nearing the 80% mark in Europe and China, we’re not sure how much more room for growth is left. Apple’s iOS still has a significant chunk of the market in the US, but that number is eroding as well. Do you think Android’s market share in the US will ever catch up with that of China and Europe?