Another month, another report showing Apple’s dominance as the top US smartphone company has peaked at just above 41 percent. Samsung, meanwhile, is taking advantage by gaining share faster than its main competitor, pushing its way to 27 percent. Rounding out the top five were LG, Motorola, and HTC.
On the platform side, Google remains at the top with Android and Apple is second with iOS. While Google’s mobile platform has slipped multiple times last year, and started off losing share at the start of 2014, it has managed to outgain Apple’s platform over the last couple months. Rounding out the top five were Microsoft, BlackBerry, and Symbian.
The latest data comes from comScore, which every month surveys over 30,000 mobile subscribers in the US. The market research firm says 166 million Americans owned smartphones (68.8 percent mobile market penetration) in March, up 6 percent since December.
During the quarter, here is how the top five smartphone OEMs fared:
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Apple slipped 0.4 percentage points in smartphone subscribers (from 41.8 percent to 41.4 percent) while Samsung grabbed 0.9 percentage points (from 26.1 percent to 27.0 percent). Samsung outgained Apple in more months than not during 2013. In 2014, the South Korean company has beat the American one in all three months so far. With the Galaxy S5 launching in more countries and on more carriers, that likely won’t change until the iPhone 6 arrives.
LG gained 0.1 points (to 6.7 percent), Motorola slipped 0.3 points (to 6.4 percent), and HTC dropped 0.3 points (to 5.4 percent). For many months now, this trio has been swapping places on the regular as each tries to gain a foothold for third place. HTC is hoping the M8 will fix its problems, Motorola is prepping a Moto X successor, but only LG has managed to recover, though we don’t have Nexus 5 sales numbers.
On the software side, Google continues to dominate. While Android lost share most months in 2013, and saw a drop in the first month in 2014, it has recovered for the following two months:
Google’s mobile operating system gained 0.7 points (from 51.5 percent to 52.2 percent). Apple meanwhile slipped to 41.4 percent, just like for its smartphone share.
BlackBerry was down 0.7 points (from 3.4 percent to 2.7 percent), Microsoft gained 0.2 points to 3.3 percent, and Symbian stayed at 0.2 percent. Windows Phone is starting to cement its third place position, which it grabbed from BlackBerry OS at the start of 2014. Nevertheless, the Android-iOS duopoly in the US hit a new high: 93.6 percent market share.
Top Image Credit: Jung Yeon-Je/Getty Images
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