The latest marketshare reports from analyst firm ComScore are out, and since the end of October Apple's iOS share of the US smartphone market jumped by 3.5 percentage points, while Samsung gained only 1.9 percent. The leaders grew at the expense of HTC and Motorola. From an operating system perspective, Google and BlackBerry took 1.3 and 1.9 percentage point losses respectively, part of what gave Apple and Samsung their gains.
The ComScore report covers the period from the end of October 2012 through the end of January 2103. Apple held 37.8 percent of the US market, with Samsung growing to 21.4 percent. HTC took third at 9.7 percent, with Motorola at 8.6 percent, and LG at 7.0 percent.
Coincidentally, when viewed by operating system, Apple holds the same percent of the market that its hardware holds -- 37.8 percent. Android overall continues to hold the lead at 52.3 percent, down 1.3 points -- the second quarter in a row that Android has seen US share drop while iOS phone sales increase, mostly on the strength of the iPhone 5. BlackBerry maintains a distant third, at 5.9 percent, a drop from 7.8 percent in October of 2012. Microsoft also took a small dent in share, falling 0.1 percentage points to 3.1 percent, and Symbian dropped to 0.5 percent from 0.6 percent.
Apple CEO Tim Cook noted both the strength of the iPhone 5 and the continued selling power of the iPhone 4 and 4s in the quarterly earnings conference call, with the iPhone 4 being free with a two-year contract at Verizon and AT&T, amongst others.
The last quarter saw no major Samsung phone releases in the magnitude of Apple announcements, but the Samsung Galaxy IV is imminent, and likely to be the primary driver of marketshare numbers for the rest of the year. Rumors that Apple will launch at least one new iPhone model in late summer to blunt the Samsung Galaxy IV's winter sales continue to circulate.
