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Apple gains US smartphone share in August at expense of Android, Samsung

The latest statistics from analytics firm comScore reveal Apple continued to chip away at Android's smartphone marketshare in the U.S. for the three-month period ending in August, while iPhone moved further away from second place Samsung.

Apple again ranked as the number one smartphone manufacturer with a 44.1 percent share of the market, up 0.6 percent from the end of May, according to comScore's report published on Tuesday. The gains were in stark contrast to runner-up Samsung, which lost 1.3 points over the same period to end August with a 27.4 percent marketshare.

LG enjoyed the highest rate of growth with a 0.9 percent jump, but the Korean company's overall standing is still below double digits at 9.1 percent. Motorola and HTC saw slight decreases in subscriber share to end the three-month term with 4.7 percent and 3.4 percent of the market, respectively.

Google's Android operating system reigned supreme in the U.S., accounting for 51.7 percent of all smartphones, but that metric is down 0.4 points sequentially. Apple's iPhone was the only platform to see gains in the August quarter, exhibiting strong demand in light of September's iPhone 6s debut.

Microsoft, BlackBerry and Symbian rounded out the top five and held relatively steady with a respective 2.9 percent, 1.2 percent and 0.1 percent of the market.

According to comScore's tally, 191.1 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the three-month period ending in August, a number representing 77.1 percent mobile market penetration.

Apple is poised for another blockbuster December quarter with the recent launch of iPhone 6s and 6s Plus. At the end of September, the company announced iPhone 6s sales of more than 13 million units over launch weekend, breaking last year's record of 10 million units. Unlike 2014, however, Apple included China as an iPhone 6s launch country, a huge market from which some pundits expected better results.