Apple named top UK smartphone brand

Apple: the UK's biggest smartphone brand?
Apple: the UK's biggest smartphone brand?

The battle over which brand has the biggest smartphone share in the UK is causing controversy, with RIM disputing the recent naming of Apple as the top manufacturer.

Comscore has released new figures that show Apple has nipped past Symbian to become the UK's biggest smartphone provider with nearly 5.5 million registered users.

Android is a close second, but while Apple has risen 46 per cent in the last year (still an impressive number given the already strong iPhone penetration) Google's Android has gone from far less than one million users to 5.4 million, showing a staggering 634 per cent increase year on year.

No, WE'RE the biggest

However, this seems to have angered RIM, which is still sticking to its Gfk-based numbers that show it has nearly double the amount of BlackBerry subscribers that Comscore is showing:

"ComScore estimated that RIM had 3.591 million BlackBerry subscribers in the UK at the end of May 2011 when in fact RIM's UK subscriber base at the end of May 2011 stood at just under 7 million subscribers," said a spokesperson.

"RIM is committed to providing its customers with the very best BlackBerry experience and is proud to be the UK's #1 smartphone brand. RIM has experienced strong international growth, with 67% of revenue in Q1 FY12 derived from international markets."

Via Eurodroid

Gareth Beavis
Formerly Global Editor in Chief

Gareth has been part of the consumer technology world in a career spanning three decades. He started life as a staff writer on the fledgling TechRadar, and has grown with the site (primarily as phones, tablets and wearables editor) until becoming Global Editor in Chief in 2018. Gareth has written over 4,000 articles for TechRadar, has contributed expert insight to a number of other publications, chaired panels on zeitgeist technologies, presented at the Gadget Show Live as well as representing the brand on TV and radio for multiple channels including Sky, BBC, ITV and Al-Jazeera. Passionate about fitness, he can bore anyone rigid about stress management, sleep tracking, heart rate variance as well as bemoaning something about the latest iPhone, Galaxy or OLED TV.