Apple continues to be the market leader in smartphones in the US, the latest three-month study from ComScore MobiLens shows. As of the end of July, the iPhone line had gained a full percentage point of share over its position in April. Arch-rival Samsung also grew its share of the US market, but by somewhat less at 0.7 percent change. Drops from other Android makers such as HTC, Motorola and LG seem to have given Apple a boost, even as the debut of new iPhones draws near.
The trend bucks conventional wisdom that demand for the iPhone drops off the closer one gets to the debut of new models, since the rough timetable of their arrival is well-known. Nevertheless, by platform iOS gained exactly as much as Android declined between April and July, further evidence of an ongoing trend of Android holding or losing share in aggregate. The loss mostly came from Android makers other than Samsung, which saw a combined drop of 1.3 percent among the top five.
Microsoft was the only rival platform to make any gain, picking up an average of 0.1 percent per month for a total marketshare of 3.3 percent. BlackBerry dropped from 2.5 to 2.3 percent, while the obsolete Symbian platform lost half of its remaining share, sliding from 0.2 percent to 0.1 percent. Total penetration of smartphones in the US reached 71.8 percent, up a single percentage point from April as well. Over 173 million people in the US now own smartphones.
Apple was again the top manufacturer by share, with 42.4 percent of the US market, followed by Samsung with 28.4 percent share. LG followed in third with 6.4 percent share (a drop of 0.1 percent), Motorola Mobility took fourth with 5.7 percent (a 0.6 percent drop) and HTC, losing 0.6 percent to arrive at 4.7 percent share. The statistics are pull from an online survey of “a nationally representative sample of mobile subscribers age 13 and older,” the company says. It notes that the survey focused on the primary owned smartphones of recipients, and didn’t include any secondary phones.
