Kantar: Apple iPhone 5 Slows Android’s Growth In U.S., U.K. — But Android Continues To Expand Marketshare Across Europe, To 67.1%

Apple’s iPhone 5 only launched towards the end of last month but first week sales of Apple’s latest superphone slowed Android’s growth in Cupertino’s two biggest markets: the U.S. and U.K. during the 12 weeks ending September 30, 2012, according to figures put out today by Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, the WPP-owned market analysts.

Dominic Sunnebo, global consumer insight director at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, noted in a statement: “While this latest data set only includes one week of iPhone 5 sales, we can see that in markets with a large number of existing Apple customers, sales have already seen a significant boost. We expect this momentum to be fully realised in the next set of results.”

In the U.S. iOS boosted its share to 35.7 percent, up from 21.5 percent on the year ago period — up 14.2 percentage points — while Android’s share dropped 8.9 percentage points over the period, falling from 66.4 percent in the year-ago period to 57.5 percent this year. Android, it should be noted, remains by far the dominant OS.

The U.S. figures also record a drop of 4.8 percentage points for RIM, down to just 2.1 percent — a smaller share than even Microsoft’s Windows Phone OS commanded (it had a 2.9 percent share, up 0.2 of a percentage point).

In the U.K. Kantar’s figures show iOS boosting its share by 9.9 percentage points — up from 18.1 percent in the year ago period to 28 percent this year. Over the same period Android’s share grew by a smaller amount, up from 53.4 percent last year to 58.2 percent this year — a rise of 4.8 percentage points.

In the U.K. the figures also record a very big drop for RIM, with the BlackBerry maker dropping 12 percentage points to shrink to just 8.8 percent marketshare. Microsoft’s Windows Phone OS showed some growth — with a 2.2 percentage point rise to reach 4.2 percent marketshare.

Despite the iPhone 5’s impact in the U.K., across Europe as a whole, Kantar’s figures show Android continuing to gain marketshare — recording a 16.2 percentage point increase for the OS, rising from 50.9 percent in the year ago period to reach 67.1 percent this year.

Over the same period iOS’s share dropped to 16.5 percent, down from 17.3 percent last year.