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Android overtakes Apple in Western Europe

by Scott Bicheno on 13 September 2011, 15:55

Tags: comScore, HTC (TPE:2498)

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Quietly taking over

Market researcher comScore has published its latest report into the smartphone market in Europe's five biggest economies - France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK - and they reveal the nature of the shifts among the major platform providers.

As you can see in the table below, Nokia's Symbian is losing market share hand over fist, which by itself is no great surprise. But it looks like pretty much all former Symbian customers are moving over to Android, maybe implying an aversion to the iPhone among Nokia users. This has led to Android overtaking iOS to take second place behind Symbian in these countries.

If anything, Symbian still has a surprisingly high market share, and that 38 percent figure runs contrary to a recent IDC report that had Nokia's Western European market share at a mere 11 percent in the equivalent period.

 

Top Smartphone Platforms in EU5 by Share of Smartphone Users*
3 Month Average Ending July 2011 vs. July 2010
Total EU5 (DE, FR, IT, ES and UK) Mobile Subscribers, Age 13+
Source: comScore MobiLens

 Smartphone Platform

Share (%) of EU5 Smartphone Users

Jul-10

Jul-11

Point Change

Total Smartphone Users

100.00%

100.0%

0.0

Symbian

53.9%

37.8%

-16.1

Google

6.0%

22.3%

16.2

Apple

19.0%

20.3%

1.2

RIM

8.0%

9.4%

1.5

Microsoft

11.5%

6.7%

-4.8

*MobiLens measures users above the age of 13 and reports on only primary handset usage.

 

"Smartphone adoption has seen significant growth from the previous year, driven in large part by the increasing popularity of the Google Android platform," said Jeremy Copp, comScore Europe VP for mobile. "Although Symbian continues to lead the EU5 smartphone market, Android is gaining fast and recently passed Apple to become the second most popular platform."

The Android OEM data is especially interesting, since it breaks them down by country. As you can see HTC is having a stormer in the UK with half of the total Android market .

 

Top Mobile OEMs for the Google Android Platform in EU5
3 Month Average Ending July 2011
Total EU5 (DE, FR, IT, ES and UK) Mobile Subscribers, Age 13+
Source:
comScore MobiLens

OEM

Share (%) of Google Android Smartphone Users

EU5

UK

France

Germany

Italy

Spain

Total Google Android Smartphone Users

100.0%

100.0%

100.0%

100.0%

100.0%

100.0%

HTC

34.6%

50.9%

21.8%

29.8%

24.8%

31.9%

Samsung

31.7%

21.6%

42.3%

32.4%

35.6%

33.9%

Sony Ericsson

15.1%

14.2%

17.4%

14.6%

8.3%

18.8%

LG

5.8%

3.5%

7.8%

6.8%

10.1%

3.4%

Motorola

3.6%

2.1%

3.0%

7.8%

2.4%

2.8%

 



HEXUS Forums :: 9 Comments

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No,

The phones are cheap, so people are buying them :P

Who would have thought it.
Former Nokia 5800 Xpressmusic user here, just bought a Samsung Galaxy S2 (which isn't cheap). I'm conforming to the stereotype, oh noes!
Off home to pick up my phone from the Royal Mail office if I have time before band :)
shouldn't that be “hoovering up”?
Wow Microsoft are taking a real pounding….. I personally find the WP7 OS the best interface by a long shot. Thing is thou you never see them in the shops in the UK.
TheAnimus
Wow Microsoft are taking a real pounding….. I personally find the WP7 OS the best interface by a long shot. Thing is thou you never see them in the shops in the UK.

Windows just isn't “sexy” and all the shops are run by the networks, who desperately want to be sexier/funkier/cooler than the others. Sadly good UI design is lost on most people… unless it's shiny and flashy with bleepy noises and a big button marked “make me annoying on the bus/take me to the riot” (or that effect).

I've got an HTC Sensation, good to see I'm now the UK stereotype, running Android on an HTC :Oops:. I love it though, it's a great device, I really have no serious complaints with it at all, the only minor one was built in storage being a bit skimpy, I upgraded the SDHC card from the supplied 8GB to 32GB, you might argue having to spend £50 on that is a serious complaint I suppose, but I wasn't bothered given that the phone was free on a contract I actually use the free mins/data from. Although I've spent a few quid on the market you really don't need to with this phone, it does a hell of a lot out of the box.

Can't see me buying another Nokia for a long time, and I had been Nokia solidly for about 11-12 years before this.