Apple, Google Still Top Smartphone Market

On a rolling average basis for the months of November, December, and January, Apple claims 37.8% of the handset market, up 3.5% from its October 2012 average of 34.3%. Samsung Electronics finished second, up 1.9% in January, from 19.5% to 21.4%. HTC Corp., Motorola (now part of Google), and LG Electronics rounded out the top five, with only LG posting a small (0.3%) share gain.

On the platform side, Google’s Android operating system took the top spot with a 52.3% share, down from 53.6% in October. Apple’s iOS platform picked up 3.5% in market share, to move from a 34.3% share to a 37.8% share. Apple took share from each of the top five platform providers: Google, BlackBerry (NASDAQ: BBRY), Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT), and Symbian. Only Apple and Google posted double-digit market shares.

The U.S. release of BlackBerry’s new operating system and touchscreen handset is set for next week, but any impact won’t show up until the March report which is due in April. The news is not so good for Microsoft, which had high hopes for its Windows Phone 8 platform.