Samsung and Android continue to dominate Apple and iOS in the US phone market according to new data from comScore for the second quarter of the year.
In the recent comScore MobiLens report about key trends in the US mobile phone industry, there are now over 110 million Americans who own smartphones and most of those are using the Android mobile operating system backed by Google.
Android Tops But iOS Posts Stronger Growth
As per the research firm’s data for the three-month period ending in June, 51.6 percent of all smartphones currently in use in the U.S. run on Android. That’s a gain of 0.6 percentage points from Android’s 51 percent showing in the previous quarter.
Second is Apple with its iOS smartphone platform with 32.4 percent market share. However, it must be noted that iOS grew faster during the second quarter when compared to Android as iOS added 1.7 percentage points to its 30.7 percent market share in the January-March quarter.
Meanwhile, the gains posted by Android and iOS are the opposite for RIM with its BlackBerry platform, Microsoft with its Windows Phone platform, and the Nokia-abandoned Symbian platform.
RIM’s BlackBerry smartphone OS posted the biggest drop for the second quarter with a decline of 1.6 percentage points to settle at 10.7 percent market share compared to its 12.3 percent share in the first quarter of the years.
Microsoft also declined but it was only 0.1 of a percentage point to get a market share of 3.8 percent for the second quarter compared to its 3.9 percent market share in the previous quarter.
Symbian continues its slide with a drop of 0.5 of a percentage point to post a 0.9 percent market share down from its 1.4 percent Q1 standing.
Samsung Continues Dominance Despite Decline
The comScore study which involved more than 30,000 U.S. mobile subscribers as respondents also looked into overall market share standing of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in the U.S. in the non-smartphone and smartphone categories combined.
According to the study, Samsung continued its dominance over all other OEMs doing business in the U.S. despite a decline in its overall market share.
For the June quarter, Samsung posted a market share of 25.6 percent of all phones used in the U.S. This is a decline of 0.4 of a percentage point when compared to its 26 percent market share in the March quarter.
Next up is LG which also declined but still got second place overall in terms of market share. The South Korean phones maker got 18.8 percent market share in the second quarter, a decline of 0.5 of a percentage point from its 19.3 percent market share in the first quarter.
Meanwhile, Apple posted a growth of 1.4 percent lifting its market share to 15.4 percent in the June quarter compared to its 14 percent market share in the March quarter.
Motorola comes in at fourth with a market share of 11.7 percent, a decline of 1.1 percentage points from its 12.8 percent market share in the previous quarter.
HTC completes the top 5 with a market share of 6.4 percent, an increase of 0.4 of a percentage point over its 6 percent showing in the first quarter of the year.
People Are Doing More And More With Their Phones
As part of the comprehensive comScore MobiLens study, the research firm also asked its respondents aged 13 and above to answer questions that reveal how exactly they use their phones.
According to the study, people are doing more and with their phones, in line with the current growth of the market segment which has grown to 234 million phone users.
Asked if they sent text messages to other phones, 75 percent said yes in the survey which is an increase of 0.7 of a percentage point from the 74.3 percent who said yes in the March quarter.
The number of users who also said they downloaded apps for their devices grew 1.4 percentage points to 51.4 percent compared to 50 percent in the January-March quarter.
More and more people are also using their mobile phones as devices to browse the internet with. Almost a full 1 percentage point more said they used their phone’s browser in the April-June quarter, or 50.2 percent of the respondents said they used their phone’s browser.
This is an increase from 49.3 per percent who said yes in the March comScore MobiLens report.
The number of people who access social networking sites or blog on their phones increased as well with a growth of 0.8 of a percentage point to post a 36.9 percent yes vote from the 36.1 percent score in the first quarter.
Mobile gaming is also increasing at a rate of 0.8 of a percentage point. There were 33.4 percent of the respondents who said they used their phones for gaming compared to 32.6 who said yes in the previous comScore report.
Music listening is the biggest gainer here with an increase of 2.3 percentage points from 25.3 percent in the January-March quarter to 27.6 percent in the April-June quarter.
Images 1, 2, 3 & 4 from Daniel*1977, .RGB., GusF & ASurroca on Flickr (CC)
