Apple has been engaged in a fierce legal battle with a number of rival smartphone vendors in Europe. While the main antagonist is Samsung, other rivals facing patent infringement cases from Apple include Motorola and HTC too. A recent research states that Apple’s sales’ percentage in the European markets has significantly dropped since last year and this may be a reason why Apple is resorting to legal wars to hamper the growth of rival Android smartphones.
According to the recent research released by Kantar Worldpanel, Apple’s share in the overall smartphone sales in both France and Germany has decreased significantly. In Germany, it has gone down from 27% to 22%. The decline has been even greater in France where the sales percentage reduced from 29% to 20%. One reason for this decrease in sales may have been a general prevalence of weak economic conditions in the Europe, currently in the fear of facing an eventual recession.
But Android vendors, specifically Samsung, have not only sustained their sales, they have actually grown. This definitely means Apple is not as popular in Europe as it is in US and UK where it has seen significant growth in the last one year. The analysts are suggesting that it may be because of this Android popularity, much more so than Apple’s, in Europe that has forced Apple to resort to patent filings so that it can hamper Android sales in any way.
Yes, Apple has launched some cases in US too but the major stage for it’s legal warfare has been France and Germany. But has this legal battle yielded anything so far in favor of Apple? Definitely not, for there is no ban in place on any of the main Android smartphones neither do the courts seem inclined to induce any such ban in near future. It seems like Apple will have to change it’s strategy to get a breakthrough in the European smartphone market.
Image courtesy Samuel M. Livingston.
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