Latest Kantar numbers shows Q4 Year on Year market share gains in US
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AppleInsider have published some numbers from Kantar’s Q4 2012 numbers for the 12 weeks ending December 23rd.
The numbers show that Windows Phone has grown market share in US despite intense pressure from iOS and Android handsets, growing from 2.2 to 2.6% of the market. The number is slightly down from 2.7% in November, but probably not significantly so.
Kantar also broke down the numbers by carrier somewhat, and revealed that the HTC 8X and Nokia Lumia 920 won Windows Phone a 3.6% market share on AT&T, significantly up on Q4 2011. At that number for every 5 Android handsets AT&T sells they sell one Windows Phone handset, a level of competition I don’t think Android users are used to.
On Verizon the HTC 8X and Nokia Lumia 822 did not do as well, but still grew 0.1% from the HTC Trophy days in Q4 2011 to 1% in Q4 2012. The numbers likely reflect the lack of a flagship phone on the carrier and Verizon’s inexperience in selling Windows Phones.
Interestingly we can generate some rough numbers from these percentages, given that AT&T announced that they sold 10.2 million smartphones in Q4 2012. At 3.6% that represents around 360,000 phones sold on AT&T. If 10.2 million phones is 33.3% of the market, a total of 30 million smartphones were sold in Q4 2012, meaning at 2.6% around 800,000 Windows Phones were sold in total, and that a significant share of Windows Phones sales come from carriers like Verizon and T-Mobile. At 1% market share on Verizon we can estimate around 100,000 sales on that carrier also, leaving a somewhat unrealistic 340,000 to share between T-Mobile and Sprint. Kantar’s numbers do of course exclude the last week of the season.
The numbers show for better or worse Windows Phone is now the 3rd OS in the country, having swept RIM out of the way, but of course needs to grow some more to provide a significant challenge to iOS and Android.
