iOS Share of Smartphone Market Up to 43% in Fourth Quarter

[Maura]

TechCrunch has word today of a new report from NPD that says that Apple’s iOS platform had a massive increase in US sales market share at the end of the year, up from 26% in the third quarter of 2011 to 43% in the fourth quarter. This indicates that iOS is now fast encroaching on Android’s market share. According to NPD, Android is still on top with a 47% market share in the fourth quarter, but this is down considerably from 60% in the third quarter. Could we even see iOS catching up with Android’s US market share by the time the next set of figures are in? Either way, NPD says that iOS and Android have both now pulled away from the rest of the pack, turning it into a “two-horse race”, with RIM, Windows Phone 7, Windows Mobile and all others all coming in at below the 10% share mark. In general, NPD says that smartphone sales are still on a growth spurt, with two out of every three handsets sold in the October/November period being a smartphone, which is an increase from 50% in the year-ago quarter. NPD also has a chart of the top ten phone models sold in October/November 2011, with Apple making a clean sweep at the top of the chart with the iPhone 4S, iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS coming in at 1, 2, and 3 respectively.

Source: iOS Market Share Up From 26% In Q3 To 43% In Oct/Nov 2011 | TechCrunch

 

[tim89]

Very intersting stuff. Quite a bump iOS had in the 4th quarter there. With now 3 phones available it really seems as if Apple would be able to get some market share back from Android in the US.
While I was looking at your source I found another intersting statistic. It shows worldwide sales by operating system. It's pretty impressive how Android is taking so much market share and selling that many devices in a short period of time. Worldwide Apple seems to have less chances to get a significant chunck of market share from Android. What do you think, any chance apple is going to have the same succes worldwide it has with 3 iPhones in the US?

Source: Worldwide smartphone sales to end users by operating system from 1st quarter 2009 to 3rd quarter 2011 (in million units) | Statista