iPhone US Smartphone Sales Share Continues to Decline

We now have new figures on iPhone share of new smartphone activations in the US. Unfortunately for Apple, that share continues to decline. While we have reason to believe iPhone’s share of the installed smartphone base is higher, the reality of sales market share is a more difficult situation for Apple.

Over the past four quarters, iPhone share of activations fell from 40% to 33% (Chart 1). We estimate 12-month periods ending each quarter, using our quarterly survey of mobile phone customers. This allows us to capture all phone activations, rather than just Apple iPhone, and looking at trailing 12-month periods eliminates seasonality caused by new phone launches, gift giving, etc.