Samsung Galaxy Note 7 failure and strong iPhone 7 sales give iOS its largest US growth rate in two years

The Note 7 disaster may have been a disaster for Samsung, but it seems the Korean company's loss was Apple’s gain

. According to recent sales data from Kantar Worldpanel, iOS has just experienced its strongest rate of growth in two years.

In the US, Apple’s operating system grew 7 percent compared to the same August 1 to October 31 period from last year. The rise from 33.5 percent of smartphone sales to 40.5 percent was doubtlessly helped by the Note 7’s failure, but strong iPhone 7 sales were also a contributing factor.

The lack of a headphone jack was thought to have put many consumers off buying Apple's latest handset, but Kantar doesn’t believe this to the case. “The lack of the headphone jack has proved to be a non-issue for US iPhone consumers," the site’s analysts claim.

The iPhone 7 was the top-selling US smartphone in the three months ending October 2016, taking a 10.6 percent share of the market - despite only being available for seven weeks out of that 12-week timeframe. It was followed by the iPhone 6S, Samsung Galaxy S7, and the iPhone 7 Plus.

Android remains above iOS in the US with 57.9 percent of smartphone sales, but this will be its 5^thconsecutive year-on-year period decline. However, the States and Japan were the only two regions where Android sales fell, by 5.6 percent and less than one percent, respectively.

There was good news for Google’s Pixel smartphones, which managed to capture the same share of the market – 0.5 percent – as established brands like Huawei and Microsoft, even though the handsets had only been on sale for a few days by the end of the quarter.

iOS continues to do well across the rest of the globe. Japan is where Apple’s system holds the largest share of the smartphone market (51.7 percent), followed by the UK (44 percent), then the US (40.5 percent).

“iOS achieved year-on-year growth across most regions in EU5 except Germany, where it fell 2.7% points to 16.5% of smartphone sales,” said Dominic Sunnebo from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech Europe. “iPhone 7 cracked the top 10 smartphones sold in all regions but Spain, which remains dominated by the Android ecosystem at 91.7% of all sales.”