iPhone share rising, everyone else looks flat or down

Analytics firm comScore is out with new research data concerning the mobile landscape in the United States during August. Good news for Apple: the iOS is on the rise among smartphones, going from 31.9 percent during the three-month period ending in May 2012 to 34.3 percent in June, July and August.

During the same timeframe, Google’s Android went from 50.9 percent to 52.6 percent smartphone market share. Better still, Apple grew at a faster clip than Google. Microsoft’s Windows Phone, Research In Motion’s BlackBerry and Symbian? All losing ground…

Per data, based on a poll of 30,000 consumers, Samsung came in first as the top smartphone vendor with 25.7 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers, followed by LG (18.2 percent) and Apple, whose iPhone grew by 2.1 percentage points, Motorola (11.2 percent) and HTC (6.3 percent).

Note that the observed timeframe covers the three month period ending August 31, just before the iPhone 5 launched and as a ruling awarded Apple with $1+ billion in damages in the Apple v. Samsung suit.


Apple is now after second-ranked LG.

What’s really interesting is that Samsung’s growth was flat, due to slowing sales in feature phones (via Localytics) and because would-be buyers likely withheld their purchases to see what the new iPhone would be about.

Matter of fact, of all the top five branded vendors only Apple gained meaningfully as everyone else dropped notably. HTC’s +0.2 percentage point change is probably a rounding error.

Note that comScore’s data takes into account only smartphones.

Considering tablets only, another survey published today suggests that the iPad now has just over half of the US tablet market, a decrease from the 80+ percent market share a year ago.

So much about analysts claiming that Amazon’s new Kindle Fire cannot put a dent in Apple’s commanding lead.

Now, you may wonder, “gee, how come that the Android platform’s overall 1.7 percentage points growth is not reflected in vendor breakdown”.

One likely explanation is that much of Android’s growth came from non-branded Android cheapos coming out of Asia, helping Google put out impressive numbers.

RIM is a sad, sad story.

As reported by Kantar Worldpanel ComTech research firm, “Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system is gaining on Research In Motion”.

Last quarter, RIM sold 7.4 million BlackBerry phones and just 130,000 PlayBook tablets.

The Waterloo, Ontario-based company’s message to devs made rounds last month.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlsahuZ_4oM

As noted by The Loop‘s Jim Dalrymple, “it’s one thing to lose ground to iOS and Android, but when Windows Phone OS catches you, you’re done”.

Thoughts?