While the rise of Google's mobile operating system may have been checked in recent months in North America, reports from the UK market suggest its impressive growth shows no sign of abating.

According to findings from market research house Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, Android has swallowed up 44.9 percent of the UK smartphone segment in the three months ending May 15.

In the space of a year, Google's OS has increased its UK market share by 35.1 percentage points, with Nokia the single-biggest casualty of Android’s rising popularity.

The Espoo-HQed vendor's Symbian OS - soon to be usurped by Windows Phone as the company’s lead platform – dropped 21.4 points over the 12-month period for 10.6 percent of the install base.

Brand loyalty

"There is no denying that Nokia has lost a significant amount of customers over the last 12 months, however, many of the remaining customers appear to be far more loyal to the brand, trading up to Nokia smartphones from Nokia non-smartphones," Dominic Sunnebo, director of global consumer insight at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, notes.

"Nokia is failing to attract new buyers to the brand, however, it retains an existing, dedicated customer-base to sell the new Windows-based smartphones to later this year."

The good news for Google continues to pour in, as Kantar's research underlines Android’s worldwide domination at present by noting it’s the most popular OS in Germany, France, Australia, Japan, alongside the US and UK.

[source: Softpedia]