Reston, Va. — Samsung posted slightly greater first-quarter gains than Apple in the share of smartphones used by U.S. wireless subscribers compared with the year-ago period, ComScore statistics show.
On a sequential basis, Apple lost a little share, and Samsung gained some.
Separately, the ComScore survey of cellphone users ages 13 and older found that Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android operating systems both posted share gains among current subscribers compared with the year-ago quarter. Apple, however, posted a stronger gain.
In brand share, Samsung’s smartphone share rose to 27 percent for the quarter ending March compared with the year-ago 21.7 percent, up 5.3 percentage points. Apple’s share rose to 41.4 percent compared with the year-ago 36.3 percent, up 5.1 percentage points.
ComScore also found that, among the top five handset vendors by current subscribers, LG’s share went to 6.7 percent from the year-ago 6.8 percent, Motorola’s share slid to 6.4 percent from the year-ago 8.5 percent, and HTC’s share fell to 5.4 percent from the year-ago 9 percent.
On a sequential basis, Apple’s share fell to 41.4 percent from the previous quarter’s 41.8 percent, while Samsung’s share rose to 27 percent from the previous quarter’s 26.1 percent.
In operating system share, Apple’s iOS share rose to 41.4 percent from the year-ago 39 percent, up 2.4 percentage points. Android’s share rose to 52.2 percent from the year-ago 52 percent, up 0.2 percentage points. On a sequential basis, however, Android gained 0.7 percentage points while Apple’s share fell 0.4 percentage points.
Year over year, Microsoft’s OS share rose 0.3 percentage points, to 3.3 percent and rose sequentially by 0.2 percentage points, BlackBerry’s share fell to 2.7 percent from a year-ago 5.2 percent and fell sequentially by 0.7 percentage points. The Symbian OS went to zero from a year-ago 0.2 percent.
In all, 166 million people in the U.S. owned a smartphone, reflecting 68.8 percent of all cellphone users. That was up 6 percentage points from the previous quarter and up from the year-ago 58 percent.
