iPhone controlled 40% of US smartphone market in 2015, data shows

Apple secured 40 percent of the U.S. smartphone market in 2015, though close competitor Samsung managed to gain ground, according to a research report published on Wednesday.

Samsung achieved a 31 percent share, Parks Associates noted. That further cemented the company's position as the second-most popular phone vendor in the U.S., easily surpassing third-place LG, which managed just 10 percent. Motorola and HTC ranked fourth and fifth, respectively.

Parks' data also suggested that a third of iPhone owners are still using a model over two years old, slightly higher than the 30 percent of Samsung owners. 45 percent of all American broadband households are said to wait two years to upgrade a smartphone.

Apple's home country has always been the most important iPhone market. Countries like China and Japan have also become stalwarts however, and indeed China is eventually expected to eclipse the U.S. in terms of Apple revenues.

Apple's position may have benefited from Samsung stumbling early in the year. The Samsung Galaxy S6 did not sell as well as initially expected, owing partly to the company overproducing too many standard S6 models and not enough Edge variants. It eventually managed to correct the issue, and revived some interest later in the year by releasing the Galaxy Note 5 and S6 Edge+.

22 Comments

eightzero 3145 comments · 14 Years

About 8 years ago

Number of units is perhaps interesting, but ultimately meaningless. The real number that matters is how much of the profit in cellphones is held by iPhone.

cnocbui 3612 comments · 17 Years

Samsung must have gained ground because of all those Android users jumping ship to iPhone 6s.

chas_m 7 comments · 8 Years

cnocbui said:

Samsung must have gained ground because of all those Android users jumping ship to iPhone 6s.

That's probably true, actually, though you probably meant it as a smart-arse remark. Android switchers are mostly likely to come from lesser Android "smartphones" that barely qualify for the term, and Apple's gains came mostly from them (though the larger wave of Android switchers is outside the US as you are apparently unaware). Samsung's gains probably came from people UPGRADING their Android phone from lesser brands to Samsung (or switching from BB and Windows Phone), as well as those who've chosen Samsung for various reasons (like the Note, which is a pretty nice AIO phablet).

trumptman 15719 comments · 23 Years

We've always been an iPhone household but this year both of my sons jumped ship to Android phones. They both bought themselves the One Plus X even though I had given them an iPhone 5S an iPhone 5 as hand me downs. I love how all my stuff connects across all my Apple devices, iPad, MacBook Pro and iPhone. They own a Windows PC, Chromebook and now an Adroid phones.

We tried so hard to raise them right.

sirlance99 1301 comments · 11 Years

trumptman said:

We've always been an iPhone household but this year both of my sons jumped ship to Android phones. They both bought themselves the One Plus X even though I had given them an iPhone 5S an iPhone 5 as hand me downs. I love how all my stuff connects across all my Apple devices, iPad, MacBook Pro and iPhone. They own a Windows PC, Chromebook and now an Adroid phones.

We tried so hard to raise them right.

I have used multiple different types of platforms and have always had all my stuff work seamlessly across all of them. Even now with my iPhone as my main driver all my stuff is right there when I need it on any other system.