Samsung increased its U.S. smartphone market share 1.3 percentage points, to 25.4 percent of the market, in the three-month period ending in October, new comScore research finds. Apple continued its dominance, however, holding a whopping 40.6 percent of the smartphone market. In addition to comparing operating systems and manufacturers, the numbers provide some insight on just what people are doing with their mobile phones.
New Market Share Numbers
The results, as summarized by CNET, are based on Mobile Metrix and MobiLens, two of comScore’s measurement services. Apple still has the largest piece of the U.S. smartphone pie, gaining 0.2 percent of the market share from quarter ending July 2013. Samsung’s gains were by far the largest, showing the company has emerged as the premier Android manufacturer. Motorola saw smaller gains, representing 7 percent of the market. These numbers came at the expense of HTC and LG, which lost 1.3 percent and 0.2 percent, respectively.
Due to its wide range of handsets and multiple manufacturers, the Android platform increased its solid hold as the top mobile OS with 52.2 percent of the market, up 0.4 percentage points from the previous quarter. The BlackBerry OS saw the only significant decline, dropping 0.7 percentage points to 3.6 percent of the market, and Microsoft gained a bit of ground, rising 0.2 percent to 3.2 percent.
Finally, the report also examined how people were interacting with their mobile devices. According to the comScore report, “Google Sites ranked as the top web property on smartphones, reaching 88 percent of the mobile media audience (mobile browsing and app usage), followed by Facebook (84.4 percent), Yahoo Sites (77.9 percent) and Amazon Sites (65.3 percent).” On smartphones alone, Facebook was far and away the most popular application, reaching 75.7 percent of the market. Google Play and Google Search were its closest competitors, with both reaching just above 50 percent.
Breaking It all Down
The smartphone market share numbers were not surprising and, after Android’s big surge last year, have remained relatively consistent. Of course, it only takes one explosive device to turn those numbers around. Microsoft can’t be happy with just over 3 percent of the market, but its gains rivaled those of Android and iOS, which is certainly a good sign for the platform. Overall, Apple’s hold on the top smartphone manufacturer spot doesn’t appear to be in jeopardy any time soon.
The more interesting numbers may be those concerning the top properties and apps. Once the bundled apps, like Google Play and Apple App Suite, are taken out, these results provide a pretty good idea of user preference.
What changes in the smartphone market do you predict in the coming year?
Image courtesy of Wikipedia
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