Apple’s iPhone product line claimed 42.8% of all smartphone sales in the UK in the month of October, according to data released by research firm Kantar Worldpanel ComTech. The company said that pent up demand for the iPhone 4S, which was released halfway through October in the country, was behind the surge in sales, and that Apple’s stellar results during the month were almost three times its share in the preceding two months.

“The October launch of the hugely anticipated iPhone 4S has catapulted Apple into second place among operating systems based on the last 12 weeks of sales,” Dominic Sunnebo, global insight director at ComTech, said in a statement to The Guardian UK. “However, if you just look at the month of October, Apple took a whopping share of all smartphone sales, giving it a significant lead over Android – a feat many thought was impossible.”

On a three-month time line, ComTech said that Apple had 27.8% of the UK smartphone market, 2.8% above the same period in 2010. iPhone smoked Android during October, 42.8% versus 35% for Android during the month, but for the longer three-month period, Android still had a clear dominance with 46% of the market, as shown in the chart below.

Chart by The Mac Observer, from data by ComTech

Other tidbits included in the report are that 75% of those who bought iPhone 4S units were upgrading their device from a previous iPhone, including 14% who were upgrading from an iPhone 4.

Nokia’s end-of-life platform, Symbian OS, somehow managed 3.9% market share, while Windows Phone 7x claimed just 1% of the market, on the other hand, that’s a five-fold increase from the 0.2% share Windows Phone 7.x had last year, just after its release.

Research In Motion’s BlackBerry platform grew during the three month period, but not enough to maintain market share. The firm saw 19.6% market share, down from 20.9%.