Android beating Apple in Australian mobile phone sales
More than 50% of phones sold in the run-up to Christmas ran Android.
Apple might have scored the biggest-selling phone in Australia over the last three months, but its market share compared to Android continues to slip.
Sales data for the last three months of 2015 from research firm Kantar Worldpanel ComTech shows that Android's market share in Australia has grown 10% year on year, and it now has more than half of all sales. Samsung remains the dominant Android provider via its Galaxy range, with 30% of the market.
Apple's share meanwhile has dropped from 45.1% to 39.6%, reflecting a comparatively low takeup of the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, its two key releases for 2015. While Apple's market share did go up 3% compared to the immediate prior quarter thanks to those new models, it seems that many iPhone users are happy to stick with the iPhone 6 or earlier models while waiting for the iPhone 7 later in 2016.
Despite the successful launch of Windows 10, Microsoft's market share for Windows Phone declined, dropping from just under 10% to a tiny 6.3%.
Here's the complete market share data (based on units sold), and a comparison to the same time period last year.
| Platform | Q4 2015 | Q4 2014 | % change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Android | 53.5% | 43.7% | 9.8 |
| iOS | 39.6% | 45.1% | -5.5 |
| Windows | 6.3% | 9.2% | -2.9 |
| Other | 0.6% | 2.0% | -1.4 |
While Apple's market share is shrinking, it will be happy that its top two models still account for almost a quarter of all sales. These were the top five models in the Australian market (the figures include all variants of those models):
Another measure of the relatively muted response to the iPhone 6s: it accounted for 16.5% of sales over those three months, while the iPhone 6 commanded 25.4% of Australian sales in the same period a year ago. That said, any other phone vendor would be more than happy to have 16.5% of the market, and 87% of Apple phone purchasers intend to stay loyal to the brand. For Samsung, the figure is 70% (which might reflect the fact that Android users can also choose handsets from Sony, HTC, Huawei, Oppo and many others).
You can compare how much you'll pay for each of the top five selling phones in Australia using the table below. (For phones available with different screen and storage options, we've chosen the smallest and cheapest versions, but you can change the included phones by clicking on "Filter Results".)
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