Android Rules U.S. and Europe Smartphone Sales

Cnet: For some time, Android has been the most popular mobile operating system in the U.S., but now its dominance is spreading throughout the world. A new report from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech says that Android has captured 50 percent or more of the smartphone market in the U.S., Australia, Germany, Great Britain, France, Italy and Spain. “We are seeing much of the Android sales growth being driven by consumers trading up from feature phones to smartphones,” said ComTech’s Dominic Sunnebo. “Android handsets currently offer an easier platform to enable these consumers to upgrade, as many first time smartphone consumers state ‘price of handset’ and ‘multimedia capabilities’ as their main reason for choosing an Android device.”

In the U.S., Android’s market share actually declined during the last quarter, although it still had 50.2 percent of the market. By contrast, Apple increased its U.S. market share 8.7 percent year-over-year to reach 37.4 percent.