Apple’s share of smartphone sales in Britain dipped only...
Apple’s share of smartphone sales in Britain dipped only slightly ahead of the iPhone 6 launch due to robust sales of the iPhone 5c in August, said Kantar Worldpanel ComTech. Historically, the British market sees a drop in share for…
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Apple in the month before a new iPhone release, but the 1.6 percentage point dip in August 2014 was due to a focus on the iPhone 5c, “which tends to attract a slightly less tech savvy buyer who will be less likely to be holding off for the iPhone 6,” said Dominic Sunnebo, strategic insight director. The iPhone 5c was the best-selling phone in Britain in August with an 8.9 percent share, outselling the iPhone 5s at 7.6 percent and the Samsung Galaxy S5 at 6 percent, said Sunnebo. Of the 13.3 million iPhone owners in the U.K., roughly a third -- some 4 million users -- are ready for an upgrade, Kantar said. “Even before the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus launched, some 85 percent of British iPhone owners planned to choose another iPhone at upgrade time,” said Sunnebo. In the past, attracting customers away from Android has been a challenge, but that could change with the larger screen size of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, he said. “It now remains to be seen how much of a barrier iPhone’s significant price premium will have on people switching” to the new Apple devices, he said. Android has remained the No. 1 operating system in the top five European countries (U.K., Germany, France, Spain and Italy) with 75.8 percent share for the three months ended August, with Apple at No. 2 with 13.6 percent, he said. Windows is third with 9.2 percent of sales during the latest period, said Sunnebo.