Samsung Adds More U.S. Smartphone Market Share at Apple’s Expense

The October report from comScore includes a full-month of sales for the new iPhones, and where we might have expected a bounce in Apple’s share, instead we got a drop. A report released last week from research firm Kantar indicated that Apple’s iPhone had gained almost nine points of U.S. market share on a three-month rolling basis in October. But Apple’s September share, according to Kantar, was 32.6% and the October jump to 41.5% is still not as high as comScore’s reported total.

The data come from the latest report on the U.S. smartphone market from comScore and is based on a three-month average for August, September and October, compared with the three-month period that ended in July 2014.

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On the operating system (platform) front, Google Inc.’s (NASDAQ: GOOG) Android gained 0.8% share in the three-month period to post a total of 52.3% of the market. Apple lost 0.5% share during the period and now holds 41.9% of the platform market. Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) dropped 0.1% to post a 3.5% share, while BlackBerry Ltd. (NASDAQ: BBRY) lost 0.2%, posting a 2.1% share.

The top five smartphone apps in the comScore survey were Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB), Google Play, YouTube, Google Search and Google Maps. Dropping out of the top five was Pandora Radio from Pandora Media Inc. (NYSE: P), which fell to seventh place behind Facebook’s Messenger app. Gmail ranked eighth, Instagram finished ninth, and Yahoo! Inc.’s (NASDAQ: YHOO) stocks app rounded out the top 10.

Facebook’s social media app reaches 72% of all smartphone users who are at least 18 years old. Google Play and YouTube both reach 51.9% of mobile media users, Google Search reaches 47.6% and Google Maps reaches 44.5%. Twitter Inc.’s (NYSE: TWTR) social media app ranks 14th, with a reach of 20.7%, down from 21.7% in the September ranking.

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