Dominic Sunnebo, global consumer insight director at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, commented: ‘Across Europe, Android growth remains strong. However, in the U.S. Apple’s expanded distribution agreement with T-Mobile is helping the iPhone keep Android growth at bay. T-Mobile is the smallest of the big four US carriers but it does have the capacity to give iOS a boost, particularly as 28% of its customers plan to buy an iPhone when they next upgrade.’
U.S. Market Shares
- Apple’s smartphone market share rebounded by 0.5 points of market share from 41.4% in April to 41.9% in May but it is down from 51.2% in December and 43.5% in February.
- Android’s market share remained above 50% at 52% in May.
- From a year ago Apple’s market share has increased by 3.5 market share points while Android’s has essentially stayed flat moving from 51.9% to 52%.
- Not surprisingly the big market share loser over the past year is Blackberry with its share decreasing from 4.6% to 0.7%.
- Windows' market share increased over the past year from 3.7% to 4.6% but it has dropped from 5.6% the past two months.
EU5 Market Shares (Great Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Spain)
- Apple has lost market share in each of the past five months decreasing from 25.6% in December to 17.8% in May.
- Apple’s troubles in Europe are probably related to the economic problems in that region since people are not willing to pay up for an Apple iPhone along with new smartphones being released by competitors.
- Android has been the big winner with its share increasing from 61.1% to 70.4% in the same five months.
- Blackberry saw its share decreasing from 4.0% to 2.5% with almost all that share moving to
Microsoft with its share increasing from 5.4% to 6.8%.
China Market Shares
- Apple’s market share dropped from 25.1% in April to 23.6% in May however it is still above the 18.6% to 21.9% that it generated from September to December last year.
- Android’s market share broke back above 70% to 70.4% in May. It had dipped below 70% the previous three months from a high of 72.5% in December.
Analysts have a fairly wide range of iPhones estimates for the quarter. They include Steve Milunovich from UBS projecting 24 million iPhones to have been sold in the June quarter with Katy Huberty writing in May that Apple could sell as many as 31 million iPhones vs. her expectations of 26 to 27 million. Credit Suisse also estimated that iPhones sales in India have increased from 70,000 to 80,000 a month to 400,000.
I am currently estimating 27 million iPhones to be sold in the June quarter, which would be a decline of 26% from the March quarter. This is steeper than the 19% decline Apple experienced last year however the smartphone market has become more competitive.
Also Apple benefited from the iPhone 4S being launched in the March 2012 quarter in China (which means some sales occurred in the June 2012 quarter). With the iPhone 5 being available in December 2012 this helped the March 2013 quarter have a full three months of sales, which should lead to a sharper dropoff in the June quarter vs. a year ago. Probably most any upside to my estimate would be driven by the iPhone 4 or 4S.
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Disclosure: My family and I own Apple shares
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