comScore: Apple ends 2013 with 41.8% US smartphone share, Samsung hits 26.1%; Android back to losing share

In the US, Apple’s dominance as the top smartphone OEM hit a new high at the end of last year: 41.8 percent. Samsung gained share faster than its main competitor for six months straight, though in December they tied as the Korean company hit 26.1 percent. Rounding out the top five were Motorola, HTC, and LG.

In the platform space, Google was still first courtesy of Android, and Apple took second with iOS. Yet Google’s mobile platform slipped at the end of the year, while Apple’s continued to plow forward. Rounding out the top five were BlackBerry, Microsoft, and Symbian, all of which lost share.

The latest data comes from comScore, which regularly surveys over 30,000 mobile subscribers in the US. The market research firm says 156 million Americans owned smartphones (65.2 percent mobile market penetration) in December, up 3.2 percent since July.

During the quarter, here is how the top five smartphones OEMs fared:

As you can see, Apple gained 1.2 percentage points in terms of smartphone subscribers (from 40.6 percent to 41.8 percent) as did Samsung (from 24.9 percent to 26.1 percent). HTC fell from third to fifth as it dropped 1.4 points (to 5.7 percent), Motorola slipped 0.1 points (to 6.7 percent), and LG stayed flat at 6.6 percent.

While Samsung has managed to gain more share than Apple in May, June, July, September, October, and November, the two tied for the holiday month. We would have expected Apple’s gains to be higher, given the recent arrival of the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c and the lack of the Samsung Galaxy S5, but consumers were more interested in iPads.

HTC’s woes continue as its One smartphone just isn’t the one. Motorola managed to move into third place, but not because it is doing well: it’s just not tanking as badly as HTC. LG has managed to stop the bleeding, but the Nexus 5 couldn’t help it recover beyond that.

On the software side, Google is still dominating, even with Apple’s steady gains. Android lost share most months in 2013, though in October and November it regained some share. December was, however, back in the red:

Google’s mobile operating system lost 0.3 percentage points (from 51.8 percent to 51.5 percent). Apple meanwhile increased its share by 1.2 percentage points (from 40.6 percent to 41.8 percent, just like for its smartphone share).

BlackBerry was down 0.4 points (from 3.8 percent to 3.4 percent), Microsoft slid 0.2 points (from 3.3 percent to 3.1 percent), and Symbian slid another 0.1 points (to 0.2 percent). The Android-iOS duopoly in the US has once again hit a new high (93.3 percent market share).

Top Image Credit: Jung Yeon-Je/Getty Images