145 Million Americans now own smartphones, making up nearly 61% of all cell phone users. Though analysts are beginning to predict a market saturation in the west and look toward developing markets such as Brazil and China for growth, the big players in the smartphone space are still gaining traction in the U.S.
The latest comScore numbers are now out, and Apple and Samsung are unsurprisingly still in the lead. Apple is the leading smartphone manufacturer in the U.S. with a 40.7% share of the market, up 1.5% from the previous quarter. Samsung is in a distant second with a 24.3% market share, up 1.3% from the previous quarter.
The gains of Apple and Samsung came from Android manufacturers that aren’t Samsung. HTC and Motorola in particular were losers over the previous quarter, dropping to 7.4% and 6.9% market shares respectively. HTC recently announced its first quarterly loss. LG was able to hang on to its 6.7% market share, which is unchanged from the previous quarter.
As for software, Android still runs on the majority of U.S. smartphones with a 51.6% share. However, that share is down 0.8% from the previous quarter, meaning Android rapid growth over the past few years may be coming to an end. Apple meanwhile improved its iOS market share another 1.5% to 40.7%. Microsoft’s Windows Phone platforms managed to see slight market share growth, up 0.2% to now make up 3.2% of the smartphone OS market.
BlackBerry OS now makes up just 4% of the smartphone OS market, having dropped 0.8% over the last quarter. BlackBerry is now up for sale, with a a $4.7 billion deal on the table and several other companies possibly interested. Windows Phone, Android, and iOS are all likely to benefit from from a BlackBerry pull-out of the consumer smartphone market, as they have been absorbing the company’s market share losses for the past two years.