The latest research from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech suggests that Windows continues to make steady gains in the smartphone market.
Despite accounting for just 5.6% of smartphone sales in the first quarter of 2013, Kantar finds, Windows showed continued growth, gaining 1.9% compared to the same period last year.
With nearly half (49.3%) of smartphone sales, Android remains the top selling operating system, but saw only slight growth compared to the same period last year, and is down versus the 3 months ending February 2013 (-1.9%). iOS remains in second place with 43.7% of smartphone sales, down throughout Q1 2013.
“As iOS and Android continue to battle it out for top selling smartphone OS, we have seen Windows steadily grow over the past year and is now at its highest sales share figure so far,” says Kantar Worldpanel ComTech analyst Mary-Ann Parlato.
“Windows strength appears to be the ability to attract first time smartphone buyers, upgrading from a featurephone. Of those who changed their phone over the last year to a Windows smartphone, 52% had previously owned a featurephone,” Parlato adds. “Comparatively, the majority of iOS and Android new customers were repeat smartphone buyers, with 55% of new iOS customers, and 51% of new Android customers coming from another smartphone. While the differences between these figures are small, with over half of the US market still owning a featurephone, it’s likely that many will upgrade over the coming year, which will ultimately contribute to more growth for the Windows brand.”
To learn more, check out the report here.
