Share of mobile operating systems in Brazil 2019-2021

In November 2021, Android concentrated over 85 percent of the mobile operating system market in Brazil. Apple's iOS held a share of nearly 14 percent and was the only other system with a share larger than ten percent at that point in time. In 2019, Brazil was among the largest economies worldwide with an iOS adoption rate below 15 percent, alongside India and Spain.

A land of Androids

In a country where more than three out of five consumers say they could not live without their smartphones, the mobile industry finds both a source of solid demand and a still expanding market. The preference for Android also helps to explain why the increasing penetration rate of cellphones manufactured in China. Beijing-based Xiaomi, for instance, accounted for less than two percent of the smartphone market in Brazil in February 2019. Exactly two years later, its share in that South American nation surpassed nine percent.

A costly Apple

Pricing is one of the reasons behind iOS’s limited popularity in Brazil. The average price of a newly released iPhone model in that country nearly doubled between 2016 and 2019, with iPhone XS’s surpassing 2,000 U.S. dollars in 2019. Meanwhile, in the first quarter of 2020, devices priced below 1,500 Brazilian reals accounted for almost two-thirds of the smartphone sales in Brazil. At March 31, 2020 exchange rates, that was equivalent to about 290 dollars.