Apple loses market share in October-quarter, iPhone X unavailability to blame: Report

Apple’s smartphone market share declined to 32.9% in the US from 40.6% a year ago.

iPhone market share slips in October-quarter (REUTERS)

The unavailability of the iPhone X during the three months ended October hit the market share for Apple's iPhones in some key regions, data from a research firm showed on Tuesday.

The market share for Apple Inc's iPhones, as measured by sales of its iOS mobile operating system, declined to 32.9 % in the US, from 40.6 % a year ago, Kantar Worldpanel ComTech's data showed.

In an analysis of smartphone operating system sales for the quarter ended October, Kantar also said iOS market share slipped in Japan and key European markets, while Android clocked gains in most markets.

The iPhone X, the 10th anniversary edition of the smartphone, was launched in early November, more than a month after the iPhone 8's launch on Sept. 22.

"It was somewhat inevitable that Apple would see volume share fall once we had a full comparative month of sales taking into account the non-flagship iPhone 8 versus the flagship iPhone 7 from 2016," said Dominic Sunnebo, global business unit director at Kantar.

Android, Google's open-source platform, is the leader in mobile operating systems and is adopted by a majority of smartphone makers.

In the October-quarter, Android's market share rose to 66.2 % in the USs from 58 % a year ago. Android also gained in other countries including Japan, Britain and Germany.

Urban China was a bright spot for Apple as iOS market share edged up 0.5 percentage points to 17.4 %. Android's share fell slightly to 82.3 % .