What you need to know
- New figures show iOS increased its market share for Q3 2019 in some locations.
- Europe, Japan, and Australia saw gains.
- But iOS actually saw a fall in share in the USA and China.
Let's start with the good news. A new report by Kantar (via 9to5Mac) has a strong iPhone 11 launch increasing iOS market share in some key locations. France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK all saw increases for Q3 2019.
The good news continues with Australia and Japan being the stars of the show. The former saw an increase of 4.1 points to 39.6% for the period. Japan went even further, increasing 10.13 points to 39.9%.
But there's bad news, too. Both the United States and China saw iOS usage fall, despite the strong iPhone 11 lineup's arrival.
Dominic Sunnebo, global director for Kantar said: "Q3 2019 saw Apple launch its new iPhone 11 family and with just over a week of sales available, the new models contributed to 7.4% of Apple's overall iPhone unit sales in Q3 2019, up from 6.6% from the launch of the iPhone XS family in Q3 2018.The new models are all selling well, with the more competitively priced iPhone 11 leading in absolute terms, but the Pro models are not far behind. Combined sales of the new models are up vs. the iPhone XS launch a year ago.In the US the model split of sales for the new iPhones is similar to the EU, though the overall contribution to Apple's total iPhone sales in the quarter is notably larger at 10.2%."
Interestingly, despite analyst beliefs that iPhone 11 demand is exceeding expectations in China, Kantar believes that trade tensions between the United States and China are to blame for the fall in market share.
Apple share fell slightly in China, the world's largest Smartphone market, down -1.3%pts. The pendulum continues to swing towards home grown Chinese brands, who accounted for 79.3% of sales in the Chinese market in Q3 2019. Huawei and Honor combined made up 46.8% sales share, maintaining its dominant position from the previous quarter, helping to cushion the impact from the US – China trade spat.
Apple has an earnings call coming up but it won't be breaking down iPhone sales. That means we might have to rely on analysts and their calculatons to work out how the iPhone 11 is doing. And importantly, where.
