Latest Kantar data for November fails to show significant Windows Phone 8 bump

Latest Kantar data for November fails to show significant Windows Phone 8 bump

December 21, 2012 | By Surur

Kantar has released their market share numbers for the 3 months ending November 25th.

The number produced a mixed picture, with Windows Phone market share up in many markets, but also down in a few compared to the last set of numbers a month ago.

In UK Windows Phone breached the 5% market share mark, hitting 5.1%, up from 4.6% a month ago and a mere 1.7% a year ago.

Dominic Sunnebo, global consumer insight director at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, comments:“Although Windows sales in the US remain subdued, Nokia is managing to claw back some of its share in Great Britain through keenly priced Lumia 800 and 610 prepay deals. The next period will prove crucial in revealing initial consumer reactions to the Nokia 920 and HTC Windows 8X devices.”

“Nokia continues to find it tough to attract younger consumers in Great Britain. Over the past six months, just 28% of Nokia Lumia 800 sales have come from under 35’s, compared with 42% of all smartphone sales. With the Nokia Lumia 920 being one of the few handsets available on EE 4G, new tariffs may help to change this by attracting early adopters in the coming months.”

In Italy Windows Phone maintained its above 10% market share, at 11.8%, up 0.1% MoM and up from 3.6% YoY.

In Germany however Windows Phone market share was only 1.8%, down from 2.3% last month and 3.2% last year, possibly due to German buyers waiting for the largely unavailable Nokia Lumia 920.

In US Windows maintained a 2.7% market share, the same as last month and slightly up from 2.1% last year.

In the EU5 countries (UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy) Windows Phone had a 4.7% market share,  the same as last month and up from 2.7% last year.

Of note is that Windows Phone is close to overtaking RIM in UK, its last European strong hold, at 6.5 vs 5.1%, and has overtaken the OS in total in the EU5, at 4.4% vs 4.7%, making it the 3rd biggest OS in the EU5 and probably Europe overall.

Overall while the numbers do not show a significant Windows Phone 8 bump yet, market share is close to double that of Windows Phone in Q4 2011, and with wider adoption and distribution in places like China, the Middle East and South America, not to mention a significantly larger smartphone market, suggests Gartner’s Windows Phone tally of 2.759 million Windows Phones sold in Q4 2012 should safely hit at least 5 million this quarter, and hopefully more as supplies of new Windows Phone 8 handsets ease in December.