Shane Cole
Smartphone buyers in the U.S. continue to flock toward Apple as the iPhone maker saw its marketshare tick upward to 41.6 percent — Â nearly as much as its four closest competitors combined — Â for the three months ending in January, according to data released Friday.
Apple's share represents a 1 percentage point bump from the previous quarter and a 3.8 percentage point year-over-year increase, market research firm comScore said in a new report. Samsung remains a distant second with 26.7 percent of the market, though the South Korean conglomerate did post a marginally more robust 1.3 percentage point increase.
LG, Motorola, and HTC rounded out the top 5 vendors with 6.9 percent, 6.4 percent, and 5.4 percent of the market, respectively. All three have lost share year-over-year, though LG fared the best — dropping just 0.1 percentage points in that period — likely thanks to its close relationship with Google.
Meanwhile, the gap between Apple's iOS and Google's Android mobile operating systems narrowed to just 10.1 percent in the January quarter, as Android ended the period down 0.5 percentage points to 51.7 percent. That margin was 14.5 percent one year ago.
Canadian smartphone maker BlackBerry, for its part, continues to slide. The company lost 0.5 percentage points in the quarter to end with 3.1 percent of the market, ceding third place to Microsoft's 3.2 percent share.
AppleInsider Staff
Malcolm Owen
Oliver Haslam
Andrew O'Hara
Wesley Hilliard
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
48 Comments
Impressive by Apple. Not surprised by Samsung since they're just giving away Note 3s. [VIDEO]http://youtu.be/QPinqfYd6QU[/VIDEO]
At the time I'm writing this, your link above points to a March *2013* report by comScore.
[quote name="NormM" url="/t/162874/apple-continues-to-add-share-in-u-s-smartphone-market-now-holds-42#post_2483170"]At the time I'm writing this, your link above points to a March *2013* report by comScore.[/quote] This is the one they probably meant to point to. From early last month: https://www.comscore.com/Insights/Press_Releases/2014/2/comScore_Reports_December_2013_US_Smartphone_Subscriber_Market_Share
So just this week, I replaced my son's decrepit feature phone with a 5s, at an AT&T store. I was struck by by how visually DOMINANT all the competitor's presentations were. Apple is in a small corner (the frontmost corner in fact, which doesn't catch your eye on your initial entrance into the store's space). They occupy less than 30% of the available retail frontage in the store, probably closer to 25%.
I couldn't resist asking the salesperson how the sales ratio of iPhones to the rest of the inventory was doing, and he said iPhones were around 60% of their business.
He added that this also varies by location... this store is definitely suburban middle-class. In more rural locations, Android tended to have a slight edge, a little over 50% of sales.
[quote name="PScooter63" url="/t/162874/apple-continues-to-add-share-in-u-s-smartphone-market-now-holds-42#post_2483176"]So just this week, I replaced my son's decrepit feature phone with a 5s, at an AT&T store. I was struck by by how visually DOMINANT all the competitor's presentations were. Apple is in a small corner (the frontmost corner in fact, which doesn't catch your eye on your initial entrance into the store's space). They occupy less than 30% of the available retail frontage in the store, probably closer to 25%. I couldn't resist asking the salesperson how the sales ratio of iPhones to the rest of the inventory was doing, and he said iPhones were around 60% of their business. He added that this also varies by location... this store is definitely suburban middle-class. In more rural locations, Android tended to have a slight edge, a little over 50% of sales. [/quote] Not surprised. The Android OEMs pay more for space/location.