Symbian gyveth, Android taketh away in Europe, says mobile phone market research

Nokia's Symbian handsets still hold the largest market share in Europe, with 37.8% of all smartphones there, but it's a far cry from the 53.9% it enjoyed just a lousy year ago.

These 16.1% Nokia's market share diminished with, have gone almost point-for-point to Android handsets. The little green robot pumped up its share in the five major European markets - UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain - with 16.2%, going from 6.1% to 22.3% of the market.

If this is a precursor of things to come in Nokia's other stronghold - Asia - things are not looking well for Espoo. The Finns better start rolling those Symbian Belle phones and Symbian updates as soon as possible, as well as out the Nokia Windows Phone campaigns with a lot of marketing cash behind them to stave off the market share slump.

Top Smartphone Platforms in EU5 by Share of Smartphone Users* 3 Month Average Ending July 2011 vs. July 2010 Total EU5 (DE, FR, IT, ES and UK) Mobile Subscribers, Age 13+
Smartphone Platform	Share (%) of EU5 Smartphone Users
	Jul-10	Jul-11	Point Change
Total Smartphone Users	100.00%	100.0%	0.0
Symbian	53.9%	37.8%	-16.1
Google	6.0%	22.3%	16.2
Apple	19.0%	20.3%	1.2
RIM	8.0%	9.4%	1.5
Microsoft	11.5%	6.7%	-4.8

Another interesting observation is that Apple's smartphone growth has been more modest than RIM's in those five major EU countries, rising 1.2% vs RIM's 1.5% increase in market share. Waiting it out for the next iPhone might be the culprit here, as much as Microsoft's transition to a brand new mobile OS might have been the reason for its big slump from 11.5% in July of last year, to 6.7% market share this summer.

source: comScore via mocoNews