New smartphone data has revealed that Samsung is Europe's best-selling brand, with a share of 45 percent.

According to research from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, which principally tracks operating systems, the success of Samsung has been of benefit to Android.

The Google-led OS saw its market share grow from July 2011's reading of 42.7 percent to 65.7 percent last month across the five largest European markets.

It grew fastest in Spain - it was up 39 percent - and now holds over 87 percent of the market.

It grew 28 percent in Itlay, 27 percent in Germany, 20 percent in France and 12 percent in Great Britain.

By contrast, Apple's iOS continued to fall in each of the major markets except Great Britain, where it increased its share of the market by two percent to 22.9 percent.

The research showed trading is still tough for RIM, with France the only country where its share remains stable instead of declining.

The largest drop experienced by RIM was in Great Britain, where its share of the market is currently 10.9 percent in comparison with last year's 21.6 percent reading.

On Samsung, Kantar's global consumer insight director, Dominic Sunnebo, said it was "easy to forget" that Samsung is selling smartphones across all tiers amid "the noise" created by the S2 and S3.

"[Samsung] now makes up five out of the top 10 best-selling smartphones in Great Britain - with even the smartphone/tablet hybrid Samsung Galaxy Note making it into the top 10," he said.

Samsung overtook Apple as the leading vendor of smartphones globally in May this year.