The US has always been the strongest market for Apple and their success has continued with the launch of the iPhone 5. Infact, the launch of the smartphone has catapulted the iOS platform ahead of Android in the smartphone market.
In the third quarter of 2012 Apple's iOS platform had a 48.1 % share of the US smartphone market compared to Android's share of 46.7%, These figures were reported in the latest smartphone sales data from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech.
The last time iOS had a larger share than Android was when Apple launched the iPhone 4S when the lead lasted for 3 consecutive quarters. It'll be interesting to see long iOS can stay ahead of Android this time and we wouldn't be at all surprised to see their lead lasting only a single quarter this time around.
In Europe Android remains the dominant force with a market share of 63.9 per cent across the 5 major EU countries. That compares with a share of just 21.2 per cent for the iOS platform, although Apple's operating system did see grrowth of just over 1 per cent based on the same period last year.
In Europe the UK is Apple's best performing country where iOS has a share of 32.7 per cent compared to 54.2 per cent for Android. While the worst performing market is Spain where iOS has just 4 per cent of the market compared to Android's whopping 81.7 per cent share.
Apple will be keen to grow market share in Europe, but they'll take comfort that the US is a much bigger market. 3G will be reporting on all the latest in the on-going battle between iOS and Android in the coming months and years !
