iPhone 6 and 6 Plus kick Apple phone shares up in first days of sale

By Chris Burns/Oct. 29, 2014 1:45 pm EST

The folks at Kantar have released their monthly consumer smartphone sales data for the three month period ending in September of 2014. This is the third quarter of the year, mind you, and the quarter in which Apple released both the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus both inside the United States and abroad. One of the more interesting bits here is in Great Britain where the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus only just started to be on sale – just 10 days of sales on record.

Inside these 10 days of sales in Great Britain alone, Apple saw their smartphone share get a 1.7% boost. This is a 1.7% boost over last year at this time, 29.3% of the smartphone market for Apple in Great Britain in the 3rd quarter of 2013 compared to 31% in 2014.

Over that same period, smartphone OS sales share went up for Apple 1.1% in Germany, 0.4% in France, 0.2% in Italy, 1.5% in Spain, 1.4% in China, 2.1% in Australia, and 1.5% in the EU5 as a whole.

Meanwhile smartphone OS sales share went down for Apple in the USA between the 3rd quarter of 2014 vs the 3rd quarter of 2013. Down by 3.3% in the USA. The same period had a 15.9% drop for Apple in Japan.

It's important to note the following launch dates for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus:

USA September 19thGermany September 19thFrance September 19thAustralia September 19thJapan September 19thItaly September 26thSpain September 26thChina October 17th (after this study was done)

Kantar also showed data that suggests Apple's smartphone share in the USA had been stopped up a bit in anticipation of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. We've been waiting a LONG time for the larger versions of the iPhone, and hype surrounding not one, but two new models made its presence known.

Data provided by Kantar shows "loyalty" for Apple moving up one percentage point this past quarter compared to the same quarter one year ago. Kantar data also shows Apple's market share in smartphones to have dropped this past quarter compared to last year at this time from 36% in 2013 to 33% of the smartphone market now – again, in the USA.