New, Bigger iPhones Stymie Android’s Dominance

According to information collected by market monitoring firm Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, Apple's latest iPhone models -- the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus -- have bumped up the sales figures of iOS smartphones, causing a small dip in Android's market share.

Kantar examined smartphone sales figures over a 12-week period ending on November 2014. It discovered that for the first time since September of 2013, Android's market share has decreased.

Considering the fact that the new and bigger iPhones are now the best-selling Apple smartphones ever, it is no surprise that Android's long dominance would take a dent. Still, it is interesting to note that despite the presence of options for large smartphones (or phablets) in Android's own arsenal, Apple still managed to take a bite out of Android's market share with just two mobile devices. 

Apple usually follows a yearly cycle in refreshing its smartphone line. This certainly affects buyer behavior, especially for fans of Apple products. Indeed, they will have to wait until a certain time in the year to get the newest offering from Apple. The result is that pent-up buyer demand often spikes up right around the time when a new iPhone arrives in stores. Unless of course, buyers are persuaded to purchase an Android device instead. Kantar's data suggests that this is what happened when the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus were released. 

Of course, Android still has the upper hand despite a small dip in market share. It still holds a 48.4 percent share of all smartphone sales in the United States this year, although that has dropped compared to last year's 50.4 percent. 

As for iOS, its share has gone up by 4.3 percentage points, increasing to 47.4 percent. Not only is iOS eroding some of Android's share, it is also eating away at other platforms, such as Windows Phone (which had decreased by 1.6 percentage points).

Kantar also has data on other markets. In the United Kingdom, Android's share has decreased to 49.7 percent compared to 56.4 percent last year, while iOS's has grown to 42.5 percent compared to 30.3 percent the year before. Across the major European markets (including UK, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain), Android's share has dropped by 3.2 percentage points, while iOS's share has risen by 6.3 percentage points. For more information on Kantar's figures for other regions, you can head on to their website to view numbers for China, Japan, and Australia.