Android phones saw an impressive growth in market share in the three months ending October 2017 while iOS shares fell, according to Kantar Worldpanel.
The market analytics firm found that Android market share grew by 8.2% in the US, 7.5% in Japan, and 4.3% in the top five European countries. However, Apple did grow its market share in urban China by 0.5% in the period, and now holds 17.4% of the market.
Kantar Worldpanel points to the lack of a flagship iPhone launch in October as the reason why the iOS market share fell. The iPhone X, which changes the iPhone design in several ways, wasn't launched until November 2017.
Somewhat inevitable
"It was somewhat inevitable that Apple would see volume share fall once we had a full comparative month of sales taking into account the non-flagship iPhone 8 vs. the flagship iPhone 7 from 2016," said Dominic Sunnebo, Global Business Unit Director at Kantar Worldpanel.
"Considering the complete overhaul that the iPhone X offers, consumers may be postponing their purchase decisions until they can test the iPhone X and decide whether the higher price, compared to the iPhone 8, is worth the premium to them."
All that said, Apple remains the third-biggest smartphone manufacturer in China. Combined with Huawei, Xiaomo, Vivo, and Oppo, the five companies take up 91% of the country's market.
While Apple may have lost market share in this period, its revenues continued to grow. It posted revenues of $52.6 billion for its Q4 FY17 period, and $229.2 billion for the year overall.