Apple iOS market share in Italy 2016-2020

Between February 2016 and December 2020, the market share of Apple’s mobile operating system iOS has fluctuated, but only comparing the two months, their market share decreased by 0.29 percentage points. This is part of a larger trend: iOS’ market share has been in decline since 2012, when it peaked at 45 percent before Android took over.

Apple’s main competitor

In terms of the number of devices, Android was the undisputed market leader: its market share grew steadily in Italy, reaching 74 percent in 2018. However, Apple ruled in terms of app sales: its revenues from global app sales were almost twice as large as those of Android. However, Apple charged on average around 90 percent of the average amount charged by Android for its apps.

Android’s predominance

Android’s predominance in the country was closely tied to the prevalence of Samsung and Huawei smartphones in Italy. Since Google decided to terminate Huawei’s Android license in May 2019, Huawei announced the launch of its operating system, Harmony. The open-source version of Android, however, will still be available for Huawei smartphone users. Being unlikely that the new operating system will take off outside of China, Android seems well-positioned to continue to lead the Italian market.