In the three months ending November 2014, iOS share of the UK smartphone market hit 42.5 per cent, according to data from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech.

Thats an increase of 12.2 percentage points year-on-year. This came mainly at the expense of Android, which suffered a drop of 6.7 percentage points in its UK market share.

This was echoed in other major European markets – Germany, France, Italy and Spain. Though Android is still the dominant OS in Europe, at 69.9 per cent, this represents a year-on-year drop of 3.2 percentage points.

“The longer the new iPhone models are on the market the more their appeal will extend beyond Apple’s loyal customers,” said Dominic Sunnebo, strategic insight director at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech Europe. “For now, customer switching from Android to iOS remains stable at 18 per cent.”

In China, however, Android still holds a firm lead. iOS saw a small increase of 1.1 percentage points in urban China, bringing its market share to 18.1 per cent – with the majority of sales coming through China Mobile – but this is still far behind Androids share of 80.4 per cent.