Android surpasses Apple in EU markets

Google Inc.'s Android has passed Apple Inc.'s iOS as the second top smartphone platform in the top five European Union markets, according to Internet marketing research company comScore. According to comScore Europe vice president for mobile Jeremy Copp, Android's increasing popularity played a large part in a "significant growth" in smartphone adoption from 2010. "Although Symbian continues to lead the EU5 smartphone market, Android is gaining fast and recently passed Apple to become the second most popular platform. Network operators, publishers and advertisers looking to effectively reach the European mobile audience must pay close attention to the continued growth of Android in the region, as it will likely have far-reaching implications for the mobile media landscape," he said in a news release. The five leading European markets are France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom. According to comScore, nearly one in four smartphone users in EU5 reported using smartphones running on the Google Android platform in July 2011. HTC had the highest market share among mobile original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), accounting for 34.6 percent of Android devices used across the region in this period, followed closely by Samsung with 31.7 percent of Android devices. Android shows fastest growth In the three-month average period ending in July 2011, 88.4 million mobile subscribers across the EU5 reported using smartphones, up 44 percent from the previous year, comScore said. Google’s Android platform exhibited the fastest growth among smartphone platforms in this period, increasing its market share 16.2 percentage points to 22.3 percent, it added. While Symbian still leads the pack, its share fell from 53.9 percent in July 2010 to 37.8 percent in July 2011 (-16.1 percent growth). Android jumped from 6.0 to 22.3 percent from July 2010 to July 2011 (16.2 percent growth). Apple's iOS increased its share slightly from 19.0 to 20.3 percent (1.2 percent), while RIM's share went up slightly from 8.0 to 9.4 percent (1.5 percent). Microsoft also saw a fall in its share from 11.5 percent in 2010 to 6.7 percent in 2011 (-4.8 percent). "Android’s growth over the past year outpaced that of other top smartphone platforms by a significant margin, with the Apple iOS and RIM platforms each experiencing gains of only slightly more than one percentage point. Meanwhile, Symbian’s and Microsoft’s share of the smartphone platform market declined, with Symbian conceding a sizeable percentage of the market," comScore said. HTC, Samsung lead Android makers The comScore study also found Taiwan-based HTC and Korea-based Samsung owning nearly two-thirds of the Android device market. In July 2011, 19.7 million EU5 smartphone users were using Android mobile devices, with the greatest number of users in the UK (6.3 million), followed by France (4.5) and Germany (4.0 million). "Across EU5, HTC owned the largest share of the Android device market at 34.6 percent, followed closely by Samsung at 31.7 percent," comScore said. In the UK, HTC accounted for more than 50 percent of Android devices in use, a significantly higher percentage than other markets. While Samsung had the second largest share of Android devices in the UK, it accounted for less than half of HTC’s share (21.6 percent). But in all other EU5 markets, Samsung ranked as the leading Android device, with a 42.3 percent market share in France and greater than 30 percent market share in Germany, Italy and Spain. Rise in iOS sales? Meanwhile, a separate article on tech site TheNextWeb indicated a possible significant rise in iOS sales as Apple readies two new iPhone models in the coming weeks. "However, Android vendors are still intent on a fast release cycle, hoping to capture the millions of featurephone users looking to upgrade to a more powerful smartphone," it said. — TJD, GMA News