In the US however, Apple reached 47.4% of sales, 4.3 percentage points higher than the same period in 2013.
“The iPhone 6 was the best selling phone in the three months through November 2014, capturing 19% of smartphone sales,” Milanesi adds.
Verizon and AT&T made up 57% of iOS sales while Verizon and T-Mobile were the top two carriers for Android accounting for 33.7% of all Android smartphones sold.
In the Asia-Pacific region, in urban China, Android retained its leading position with a market share of 80.4%.
“The wide variety of products offered by local manufacturers continues to push Android’s share,” adds Tamsin Timpson, strategic insight director, Kantar Worldpanel ComTech Asia.
“Xiaomi remains the biggest contributor to Android’s success as it averaged 30.2% of sales in the three months ending in November, an astonishing 18 percentage point rise over 2013.”
Timpson says Apple sales saw a small increase of 1.1 percentage points, which brought Apple’s share of the smartphone market in urban China to 18.1%. China Mobile remained Apple’s main channel with sales through the largest Chinese carrier accounting for 63% of Apple’s overall sales.
Smartphone penetration reached 58% in the US and 65% across Europe’s big five economies.
“While die-hard featurephone owners state they are not planning to buy a smartphone in the next 12 months, they might not have a choice as vendors continue to transition their portfolio away from featurephones to smartphones,” Milanesi concludes.
Forty-seven percent of featurephones owners looking to change their current device in the next 6 months in the US and 35% across Europe top 5 are not planning to upgrade to a smartphone.