mobileu.co.uk

iPhone grabs large proportion of October sales

A large proportion of smartphones sold in October were Apple iPhones, recent research has confirmed.

Conducted by Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, the study found that the iPhone 4S accounted for 42.8 per cent of all sales during the last month. Google Android devices were the second most popular, clocking up 35 per cent of sales.

Meanwhile, smartphones in general appear to be growing in popularity and they accounted for almost 70 per cent of all mobile phone sales during the three months to the beginning of August, while the market grew by 43 per cent in October alone.

In addition to Android and Apple, Research in Motion remained relatively popular, with 19.6 per cent of handset sales, while Nokia's Symbian dropped to just 3.9 per cent from 14.1 per cent last year. However, the launch of Nokia's tie-up with Microsoft could well change this situation.

Dominic Sunnebo, global insight director at Kantar, commented: “The October launch of the hugely anticipated iPhone 4S has catapulted Apple into second place among operating systems based on the last 12 weeks of sales.

“However, if you just look at the month of October, Apple took a whopping share of all smartphone sales, giving it a significant lead over Android – a feat many thought was impossible.”