In the three-month period ending in May 2015, Apple’s iOS claimed a 30.9 percent share of the U.S. smartphone operating system market, down from 32.5 percent in the same period last year. By comparison, Google’s Android increased its share of the U.S. market from 61.9 percent to 64.9 percent over the same period.

The latest smartphone sales data from research firm Kantar Worldpanel ComTech suggests that the recently launched Samsung Galaxy S6 has put Samsung Electronics Co Ltd. on a strong footing in the U.S.

“The first full month of sales of the Galaxy S6 allowed Samsung to regain the market lead in the U.S. and grow its share of Android sales from 52 percent in the three months ending in April to 55 percent for the three months ending in May,” said Carolina Milanesi, chief of research at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech.

According to Kantar, the Galaxy S6 is now the third best-selling smartphone in the U.S., behind the iPhone 6 and Galaxy S5.

It is not just Samsung devices spurring Android’s market gains in the U.S. According to Milanesi, Android-based LG smartphones almost doubled the company’s share of the U.S. smartphone market year-over-year.

Image credit: Kantar Worldpanel ComTech

In Europe, strong demand for Apple’s larger-screen iPhone 6 models saw the company at the top of the sales charts in Great Britain, Germany, Italy and France.

Android fared markedly worse in Europe, where it lost 2.9 percent market share, compared to the same period last year.

“Britain remains the iOS stronghold, forcing Android vendors to rely more on winning customers from Apple than from other Android players,” said Dominic Sunnebo, business unit director at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech Europe.

This is something Android vendors appear to be struggling with. In the three-month period ending in May, Kantar’s figures show that only 5 percent of new Android buyers switched from Apple, compared to 11 percent for the same period a year ago.

Inversely, a report from Kantar last month showed that on average 32.4 percent of first-time iPhone buyers during the first quarter of this year switched to iOS from Android handsets.

The small loss of market share in the U.S. aside, Apple has smashed sales records for its iPhone for two successive quarters and, according to CEP Tim Cook, “We’re [Apple] seeing a higher rate of people switching to iPhone than we’ve experienced in previous cycles.”

photo credit: iOS 8 icons via photopin (license)