Samsung’s Smartphone Market Share Slides in June

The latest rankings are out from comScore Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) on the US smartphone device and platform markets. Samsung Electronics (OTC: SSNLF) leads the device makers with a 25.6% market share in the three-month period to June 2012. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) is in third place with 15.4%, behind second place vendor LG Electronics. Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG), which now owns Motorola’s handset business, claimed 11.7% and HTC Corp. held 6.4%.

Apple gained 1.4% share in the three-month period and only HTC, with a gain of 0.4%, also showed growth. LG lost -0.5% of its market share, Motorola/Google lost -01.1%, and Samsung lost -0.4%.

On the platform front, Google’s Android holds a 51.6% share, followed by Apple’s iOS with a 32.4% share, Research in Motion Ltd. (NASDAQ: RIMM) with an 10.7% share, and Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) with a 3.8% share. RIM lost -1.6% share in the period, and Nokia Corp.’s (NYSE: NOK) Symbian lost another -0.5% to finish with a 0.9% share. Apple gained the most, 1.7% and Google was the only other gainer, up 0.6%.

As has long been the case, the most heavily used smartphone feature is text messaging, used by 75% of mobile device owners. The other popular uses are downloading apps (51.4%), browsing (50.2%), and accessing a social network site (36.9%). Listening to music on a mobile phone was up 2.3% — the largest gain for the period — at 27.6%.

The Microsoft/Nokia smartphone venture continues to suffer from the decision not to allow users to upgrade existing phones to the coming Windows Phone 8 operating system. Microsoft, which had been gaining share in the platform space, lost -0.1% of its share during the period, while Nokia’s Symbian fell below a 1% share for the first time. Nokia doesn’t even make it into the top five hardware vendors as measured by comScore. Tough days indeed.

Paul Ausick