Kantar Worldpanel ComTech today released figures revealing that Samsung continues to dominate the smartphone market in Europe.

For three months up to May 2013, the numbers showed that almost half of the smartphones sold in Europe were Samsung smartphones.  This huge increase has also helped Android’s overall market penetration, which now stands at 70.4 percent share across Great Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Spain.  The Android percentage presented is higher than the 61.3 posted last year and is far greater than market shares of iOS and Windows, which command just 17.8 percent and 6.8 percent of these markets respectively.

In Britain, Samsung has the second highest loyalty rate, 59 percent, with Apple having the most loyal consumers at 79 percent.  But those numbers may further diminish as Europeans are now turning their heads to another Android OEM.

Though Samsung is leading the race in Europe, Kantar explains that there is a growing consumer interest in Sony devices, specifically the Xperia Z smartphone.  Kantar states that 38 percent of Xperia Z users were former Samsung users, the majority of whom were previously using Galaxy SII smartphones.

So what does Sony’s success mean for Samsung?  Simple, if the South Korean giant doesn’t spice things up a bit, and I don’t mean simply releasing new iterations of its flagship smartphones, it could lose out to other Android OEMs, such as Sony.  Or it simply means that making your phone waterproof/water resistant and dust resistant is more appealing to consumers.  If that’s the case, then the Samsung will have no problem gaining back the consumers they lost, as the Galaxy S4 Active is already available for purchase.

Android on the Rocks?

Though the Android platform is easily the largest and most used mobile platform in the US, Apple is slowly gnawing on its heels with its strategic distribution plan.  iPhones recently became available on T-Mobile and its subsidized offering is allowing people on a tight budget be able to afford iPhones for the first time:

“Across Europe, Android growth remains strong. However, in the U.S. Apple’s expanded distribution agreement with T-Mobile is helping the iPhone keep Android growth at bay. T-Mobile is the smallest of the big four US carriers but it does have the capacity to give iOS a boost, particularly as 28% of its customers plan to buy an iPhone when they next upgrade,” Paul Moore, global director at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, wrote.