Android can claim to lord it over iOS in terms of smartphone market share, but a study from comScore shows that without a viable tablet to compete with the likes of Apple's iPad, it won't topple the Cupertino firm - not in the key five European countries at least.

In terms of total device OS market share, comScore found that, across the UK, France, Spain, Italy and Germany, Apple takes the majority, with 30 percent, while Google's Android caters for 27 percent.

Amazon's Kindle Fire has yet to be released outside North America however. 

Rat pack

Handily colour-coded charts provided by the research firm indicate that this advantage is mainly due to Apple's OS being implemented across a multitude of devices, including tablets and the iPod touch.



Meanwhile the Symbian OS still manages to hold on in third place overall with 26 percent, while RIM and Microsoft round of the pack with 8 percent and 5 percent respectively, along with the final 5 percent being attributed to Other.

The study also found that tablet usage saw significant spikes during night-time hours, especially when compared with computers or mobiles, implying the nature of tablets as a device used mainly in people's free time, rather than at work.



[source: comScore (PDF requires registration)]