A new report today reveals that the latest smartphone OS data in the three months ending April 2017, Android and iOS continued to increase their share of most markets. More importantly, Apple posted a strong period-on-period gain in urban China, rising to a 16.2% share from 12.4% in the first quarter of 2017, which was their lowest since early 2016. Tamsin Timpson, Strategic Insight Director at Kantar Asia stated that "the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus sales recovered slightly, now representing 8.5% of smartphones sold in the region, outpacing both Huawei and Oppo models."

iOS accounted for 36.5% of smartphone sales in the US for the three months ending April 2017, a 5.8 percentage point increase over the same period one year earlier.

In Europe's big five markets which includes Great Britain, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain, iOS posted a 1.1 percentage point gain to reach 19.3 percent of smartphone sales in the region.

The Kantar report interestingly noted that "Huawei captured 8.9% of smartphone sales in Great Britain during the three months ending April 2017, a 6.1 percentage point growth over the same period a year earlier. Huawei, who has grown to the third largest brand across Germany, France, Italy and Spain, have contributed to the growth of the Android ecosystem, disrupted sales for Samsung.  

Though more interesting is the fact that Samsung's hype for the Galaxy S8 has proven once again to be fake news. According to Lauren Guenveur, Global Consumer Insight Director for Kantar Worldpanel, "The Samsung Galaxy S8, released in the last two weeks of the April period did not show a significant impact on Samsung's sales in the period ending in April, nor did LG's G6. Neither of those made the list of Top 10 best-selling phones."

Even though the hype includes Consumer Reports claiming that the S8 is the top consumer smartphone in the U.S., Kantar's Guenveur provides us with the facts: "Early indications in our data for the three-month period ending in May 2017 show that the S8 and S8 Plus will reach a combined share of 8.1% in the US, slightly behind their predecessors the S7/S7 Edge at 8.8%." 

In contrast Guenveur pointed out that the "iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus remained the top sellers during the May period with combined share of 20.1%."

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