Apple Inc.’s share of the smartphone market increased in the three months ending November 2014 on the back of its new iPhone 6 and 6s models, new figures from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech reveal.

The increase in iPhone sales challenged Android’s dominance of the market resulting in a decline in Android’s market share, the first decline since September 2013, Carolina Milanesi, Kantar’s chief of research said in a statement.

The stats show that in the United States, Apple reached 47.4 percent of sales, 4.3 percentage points higher than the same period in 2013. Android’s market share fell from 50.4 percent to 48.4 percent, putting it only 1 percentage point ahead of Apple.

Across Europe, Android retained the mantle of most popular operating system with a market share of 69.9 percent, dropping 3.2 percentage over the same period to November 2013.

Growth in the U.K. was stronger again for Apple, with the iPhone taking 42.5 percent of the market, up 12.2 percentage points year-on-year. Android dropped 6.7 percentage points.

“The longer the new iPhone models are on the market the more their appeal will extend beyond Apple’s loyal customers. For now customer switching from Android to iOS remains stable at 18 percent” the report noted.

In urban China, a market dominated by Android with an 80.4 percent market share, Apple sales were up 1.1 percentage points, giving it a 18.1 percent slice of the world’s largest mobile phone market. Not noted in the report though is that the iPhone 6 and 6s didn’t go on sale in China until October 10th, nearly a month after the rest of the world; it can be suggested that the trend figures don’t yet fully reflect Chinese interest in the new Apple models.

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Growth opportunities

There’s still plenty of room in the market for both Apple and Android products to increase sales, with smartphone penetration reaching 58 percent in the US and 65 percent 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”, the report concluded.

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