iOS stealing market share from Android' as people stop buying first phones

Fewer and fewer people are buying new smartphones, so brand loyalty is becoming more important, analysts say

Use of Google’s Android is in decline as Apple’s iOS steals customers away, according to a new report.

Android still has a much bigger proportion of the British market than iOS — Google’s operating system powered 54.2 per cent of the phones sold in the three months to April 2015. But that was down from 59.1 per cent in the same period the year before.

Much of the decline in Android’s share has been driven by a falling number of people buying their first smartphones, according to Kantar, the firm that published the research. Only 15.1 per cent of people are buying their first phones, with most of the growth in sales coming from people replacing their old phones.

That is causing sales of Android phones to decline because consumers tend to show less loyalty to many Android phone manufacturers, the analysts said.

At the same time, iOS sales increased in the UK, from 29.5 per cent of sales in the same period in 2014 to 35.8 per cent this year.

Google revealed the latest update to its operating system, known under the codename Android M, last week. The new updated focused largely on performance and battery life, as well as a much wider integration of Google’s search and data capabilities within the operating system.

Apple is set to reveal iOS 9, the latest version of its operating system for the iPhone and iPad, at the Worldwide Developer’s Conference next week. That’s expected to take a similar focus on improving the phone rather than adding new features — though major upgrades like its new music streaming service are also expected to launch.