Apple’s iPhone continues to beat out Android as the best selling smartphone platform in the US, showing 51.2% of the market for a twelve month period which ended December 23 of 2012. According to the data released by market-analyst Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, Android has remained stable in market share since the same period of time in the previous year, at 44.8%, while Windows phone brings up third place at 2.6 percent of smartphone sales sold in that time period.
AT&T maintains the top spot during this period, selling 33.3 percent of smartphones across platforms, a slight decline from last year. Verizon stayed relatively stable in selling 32 percent of US smartphones, while Sprint hasn’t seen much increase in sales share at 14.8 percent.
Kantar Worldpanel ComTech uses a consumer panel approach to market analysis, claiming the largest continuous consumer research mobile phone panel of it’s kind. The company does ovefr 250,000 interviews per year in the US alone, tracking sales, phone behavior, airtime, and the like.
Mary-Ann Parlato, a company analyst, said, “Apple’s continual improvement is thanks to both the iPhone 5 and older models attracting various customer groups, from repeat Apple buyers, first time smartphone buyers and those coming from other smartphone brands.”
She went on to describe how 36 percent of iOS sales were actually by owners of other smartphone brands and 19 percent of iOS sales were specifically by previous Android owners, saying that “the proportion of Android users moving towards the Apple brand increases, compared to 9 percent in 2011.”
Broken down across retailers, Verizon shows the biggest win for iOS, as 49 percent of iPhone sales there were by folks who previously owned a different smartphone, with a full 30 percent of those deriving from Android users. In comparison, only 15 percent of iPhone buyers had previously used other smartphones (6 percent from Android) at AT&T stores. 35 percent of iPhone sales were upgrades from previous iPhones and 30 percent were upgrading to their first smartphone.
So, as you hear more and more reports about how Apple is failing, and Android smartphones are taking over the world, be sure to pay attention to these numbers as well, showing that in actual sales, Apple is still the top dog.
Source: Kantar Worldpanel ComTech
Via: Electronista
