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Brits just can’t get enough of the iPhone, it seems. New figures show sales of iOS devices climbing in the UK, growing faster than Android sales — but our continental amis and amigos are less impressed with Apple.
Numbers from Kantar WorldPanel ComTech show that sales of iOS devices rose by 10 per cent here in the UK in the three months leading up to the end of September. Android smart phones still outsell Apple devices by a significant margin, but when the iPhone 5 hit shops Apple took a big bite out of Android’s share of the market: more than a quarter of all phones sold were iPhones.
Android sales did increase, just not as much. 58 per cent of phones sold here in the UK are Android phones, buoyed by the continued success of the Samsung Galaxy S3 and its ilk.
A similar pattern appeared in the US, where iPhone sales grew by a whopping 14 per cent to take over a third of the smart phone market. But in Europe Android held its own, as two thirds of phones sold in France, Germany, Italy and Spain were Android devices.
These figures include only a week’s worth of iPhone sales, but it seems the iPhone 5’s early boffo business cancels out any loss of sales from customers snubbing the previous model while they waited for the new version.
Aside from the big two, RIM is still popular here in Blighty, with BlackBerry phones claiming 8.8 per cent of sales. And Windows Phone sales have doubled! But only to 4.2 per cent, so don’t get too excited just yet.
Still, it’s interesting that Microsoft’s mobile phone platform grew at all in this time, considering it was essentially a holding period in which the lame duck Windows Phone 7 lineup stood in while we counted down to the arrival of Windows Phone 8.
Does the new iPhone deserve to be doing so well at the tills, or is Android the only way to go? Tell me your thoughts in the comments or on our Facebook page.
