iOS Market Share: Apple’s iOS Continues to Lead Smartphone Market

iOS Market Share: According to a recent report by Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s iOS continues to lead the market with a roughly 51 percent share of all smartphone sales in the United States.

Despite stiff competition, Apple continues to outsell the rest of the industry. Here is a brief statistical breakdown from AppleInsider, showing the dominance from the tech giant:

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) Press Info

“According to data released by Kantar Worldpanel ComTech on Tuesday, iOS accounted for 51.2 percent of all U.S. smartphone OS sales for the 12-week period ending on Dec. 23, 2012, up over 7 percent from 44.9 percent in 2011. The market research group conducts more than 250,000 interviews per year in the U.S. to track mobile phone purchasing behavior, associated bills and other metrics.”

As you can see, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has a lot to be happy about. Not only are they leading the market at the present time, but the company saw a huge leap when compared to the same data from 2011.

Why was Apple able to make up so much ground during this 12-week period? While there is no way of saying for sure, it appears that a decline in Android market share had a lot to do with it. Google’s mobile OS declined to 44.2 percent, down from 44.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011.

Here is what Kantar Worldpanel ComTech analyst Mary-Ann Parlato had to say, as cited by the same AppleInsider article:

“In particular, 36% of iOS sales were derived from other smartphone users over the last year. While this figure remains stable over time, the proportion of Android users moving towards the Apple brand increases. 19% of iOS sales over the last year were derived from Android users, compared to 9% in 2011.”

Parlato believes that a growing number of Android users are skipping out on this operating system for the chance to give the Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhone a closer look.