Apple Gets “Significant Bounce” On 5c, 5s iPhones; Android Still Trumps With 71% Share Of All Sales
Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, the WPP market research division that provides a rolling check-in on how smartphones are selling in key markets, has put out its latest figures this morning covering the 12 weeks that ended October 31.
Context & Ripple Effects
Kantar Worldpanel ComTech's rolling tracker has spent a year mapping this cycle: the original iPhone 5 shot Apple back to the top of U.S. smartphone sales in late 2012, peaking with an all-time-high 53.3% U.S. share that December, before Android rebuilt its lead through 2013 — taking 64% of global sales in Q1, then 52% of U.S. sales in April even as iOS and Windows Phone grew faster off smaller bases.
The new 12-week figures ending October 31 show the 5c/5s launch breaking that slide, with Apple getting what Kantar calls a significant bounce just as the holiday quarter opens. The story travelled unusually widely — the Telegraph, Quartz, Computerworld, CNET, ZDNet, Computerworld and AppleInsider all picked it up, several framing it around Windows Phone crossing 10% of European sales.
First-order effects
- Apple heads into the December quarter with both a budget-tier 5c and flagship 5s selling in volume, letting it defend share at multiple price points rather than relying on one model as it did with the 2012 iPhone 5 peak.
- Android's 71% global share confirms Samsung and the other Android OEMs retain overwhelming volume leadership even in a launch window built around a new iPhone generation.
Second-order effects
- Carriers and retailers stocking the cheaper 5c alongside the 5s give Android's mid-market players a direct pricing fight during the holiday season, where Kantar's own data shows iOS growing faster than Android in percentage terms despite the volume gap.
- Windows Phone's 10% European sales share, highlighted in the same syndicated write-ups, puts pressure on the number-three ecosystem slot that BlackBerry once held — Nokia's Lumia line becomes the beneficiary of any third-platform appetite.
Third-order effects
- If Kantar's pattern holds — iOS spiking on each new hardware cycle, Android absorbing the rest, Windows Phone inching up in Europe — smartphone sales consolidate into an Apple-versus-Android duopoly with a single challenger, squeezing out smaller platforms.
- The recurring rhythm of these Kantar reports also cements quarterly panel-share data as the industry's scoreboard, shaping carrier ordering and investor narratives around each handset launch rather than annual results alone.
The trend: Smartphone market share is settling into a two-platform rhythm in which each iPhone generation produces a temporary Apple bounce against structurally dominant Android volume.