Android phone market share in the U.S. rose to 64.9% in June

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In the early morning of July 2nd, Beijing time, market research company Kantar Worldpanel Comtech (hereinafter referred to as "Kantar") released a report saying that Android smartphones' market share in the United States rose 2.8% to 64.9% in June.

Kantar said that Android's success was helped by growth in sales of the Samsung Galaxy S6. Carolina Milanesi, the firm's research director, noted: "The Galaxy S6's first full month of sales helped Samsung regain its leadership in the US market. Samsung accounted for 55% of Android smartphone sales in the three months to May, compared with 52% in the three months to April."

According to Kantar, the Galaxy S6 is the third best-selling smartphone in the U.S., behind the iPhone 6 and Galaxy S5. The company also pointed out that LG's sales growth also helped increase the market share of Android phones, saying that its U.S. smartphone sales nearly doubled year-on-year.

Android phones did not fare so well in Europe. In the "big five" European markets of Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Spain, Android phones saw their share fall by 2.9% year-on-year, while the iPhone 6 was the largest. Kantar data showed that only 5% of Android users in Europe this year came from Apple, compared with 11% in the same period last year.

Apple also leads the Chinese market, but only slightly ahead of Huawei and Xiaomi. Kantar said the market share gap between the three companies is within 0.5 percentage points. Milanesi said: "China has become the most interesting mobile phone market, both in terms of whether it can make a manufacturer successful and in terms of its role as an 'incubator' that can quickly enable new brands to gain global status."