Windows Phone and Android battered by iPhone 6 in latest Kantar Numbers

Tim Cook said the iPhone 6 would cause “the mother of all upgrades” and looking at the latest Kantar numbers, the release of the new handset has certainly had an impact on Windows Phone worldwide.

In the 3 months ending November 2014 (which encompasses the release of the iPhone in October) Windows Phone generally took a market share hit in the majority of the markets covered by Kantar compared to the October 2014 numbers.  The exception was Germany and Australia, where there was in fact a small increase in share.

Windows Phone was not alone however, with Android also suffering.

“While remaining the dominant global OS, Android’s market share dropped in most European markets and in the US where the decline was the first since September 2013”, said Carolina Milanesi, Chief of Research at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech.

Across Europe, Android remained the dominant OS with a market share of 69.9%, although this is 3.2 percentage points lower than the same period in 2013. “Great Britain saw the strongest share decline for Android at 6.7 percentage points”, said Dominic Sunnebo, strategic insight director at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech Europe. Apple’s market share gain, triggered by the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus launch, continued into November when it reached 42.5% of British sales for a growth of 12.2 percentage points year-on-year mainly at the expense of Android. “The longer the new iPhone models are on the market the more their appeal will extend beyond Apple’s loyal customers. For now customer switching from Android to iOS remains stable at 18%”, added Sunnebo.

Traditionally iPhone numbers do however drop around 3 months after launch, and the January-February numbers should show some improvement a few months from now.

Read Kantar’s full report here.