Apple Seizes Smartphone Share From Rivals

July 3, 2015 by Douglas A. McIntyre

Google Inc.’s (NASDAQ: GOOGL) Android helped smartphone manufacturers to seize market share from Apple Inc. (NYSE: AAPL) for years. That trend has reversed, at least in the United States. Apple clawed back more share in the three months that ended on May 15, compared to the period ended on February 15.

According to data from comScore MobiLens and Mobile Metrix:

Apple ranked as the top OEM with 43.5 percent of U.S. smartphone subscribers (up 1.8 percentage points from February). Samsung ranked second with 28.7 percent market share (up 0.1 percentage points), followed by LG with 8.2 percent, Motorola with 4.9 percent and HTC with 3.5 percent.

The products other than Apple’s use Android. However, there are enough smartphones using Android that in total the operating system maintains a modest edge. What is amazing is that the only product that uses iOS is the iPhone. Dozens and dozens of products use Android. In terms of operating system share:

Android ranked as the top smartphone platform in May with 52.1 percent market share, followed by Apple with 43.5 percent (up 1.8 percentage points from February), Microsoft with 3 percent, BlackBerry with 1.3 percent and Symbian with 0.1 percent

Once again, it is Apple that is moving forward.

Finally, the Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) app leads all apps based on smartphone market share, which shows how successful the social network has moved to mobile. Major competitor Google has fallen well behind:

Facebook ranked as the top smartphone app, reaching 70.2 percent of the app audience, followed by YouTube (59.1 percent), Facebook Messenger (52.4 percent) and Google Play (52.1 percent).

Google has not been entirely shut out of the top app list. Its Gmail, Google Maps and search products do well.

The smartphone market might have turned out to be one that was in fragments because of dozens of phones and hundreds of thousands of apps. Instead, it is controlled by a handful of companies.

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