iphone leads European market, Samsung relies on big screen handsets

May was the first month for Galaxy S5 to be sold in Europe, with sales of third in Europe, against Apple's iphone 5s and 5c, according to Kantar Worldpanel, a market research institute. The five major European markets for data statistics include Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Spain. The study found that 17% of the people who bought the Galaxy S5 were consumers of Apple devices, and 58% of the buyers were old users of Samsung. Kantar Dominic Sunniber, director of strategic Insight Dominic Sunnebo, said: Overall, consumers buy Galaxy S5 mainly for its oversized display. Apple is expected to catch up on its new launch in September with a larger screen of iphone 6. From the European market, Android now accounts for 73.3% of the market, with Apple iOS 16.6% and Microsoft Windows 8.1%. Android's market share increase did not exceed iOS significantly, meaning that the diversification of the platform is slowly being established, but also shows that Samsung and Apple in the past one months have been equal. Europe's results are just the opposite of those in the United States. In the United States, Galaxy S5 is the second most popular May model. Apple's iphone 5s is still the best-selling model in the past three months, but Samsung's overall handset brand has sold more than Apple, which accounts for 36.8% of the market and 32.5% for Apple. It is widely expected that Apple will sell 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch two large-screen handsets. By then, it remains to be seen whether Apple's new handsets will be favored by consumers, and how much it eats into the giant-screen handset market created by Samsung. (LI)