Apple's iPhone Beats Android in the U.S.

Datamation content and product recommendations are editorially independent. We may make money when you click on links to our partners. Learn More .

A new market research report claims that consumers in the U.S. purchased more iPhones than Android phones during the holiday season. The iPhone also dominated the market in Japan, but everywhere else in the world, Android was number one.

InformationWeek’s Eric Zeman reported, “Strong sales of Apple’s iPhone at AT&T and Verizon Wireless during the fourth quarter of 2012 helped buoy iOS’s share of the U.S. smartphone market, according to data from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech. In a report published Tuesday, Kantar noted that Apple’s smartphone platform earned just a hair more than half the U.S. market and two-thirds of the Japanese market during the closing months of 2012.”

Apple Insider’s Mikey Campbell added, “According to data released by Kantar Worldpanel ComTech on Tuesday, iOS accounted for 51.2 percent of all U.S. smartphone OS sales for the 12-week period ending on Dec. 23, 2012, up over 7 percent from 44.9 percent in 2011. The market research group conducts more than 250,000 interviews per year in the U.S. to track mobile phone purchasing behavior, associated bills and other metrics. Apple’s increased performance appears to be somewhat at the cost of Android as Google’s mobile OS marketshare declined from 44.8 percent in quarter four 2011 to 44.2 percent over the same period in 2012. The biggest contraction in marketshare was felt by beleaguered BlackBerry maker RIM, which suffered a drop from 6.1 percent of smartphone sales in the last quarter of 2011 to 1.1 percent during the same period in 2012.”

PCWorld’s Daniel Ionescu noted, “The latest figures from Kantar Worldpanel Comtech for the 12 weeks to December 23, 2012, show that Android maintained a stronghold in Britain, Germany, France, most European countries and Australia, with more than 50 percent of the market share, and up to 86 percent in spaces such as Spain. Android also has a 72.5 percent majority in the urban Chinese market.”

The Register’s Anna Leach observed, “Windows Mobile clocked up an impressive 13.9 per cent of smartphone sales in Italy, and 5.9 percent of sales in Britain for three months before Christmas. Otherwise Microsoft’s WinPhone handsets barely made a ripple in Christmas sales. Windows smartphones only scooped 2.6 per cent of sales in the US, though that did put the mobile operating system in third place ahead of BlackBerry.”