Apple’s US Smartphone Rankings Rise in December

For the three-month period ending in January, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) added 0.3% share of the U.S. smartphone subscriber market and now leads all original equipment manufacturers with a 43.6% share, up from 42.9% in the October ranking. Samsung Electronics added 0.6% share to total 28.5%, compared with its September total of 27.9%.

In the December ranking, Apple’s share had dropped 0.7% and Samsung had added 0.8% share, compared with the three-month period ending in October 2015.

LG Electronics dropped 0.2% from an October share of 9.8% to a yield a January share of 9.6%. Motorola’s share slipped 0.1%, from 5.1% in October to 5% in January and HTC’s share also dropped by 0.1% to 3.2%.

The data are contained in the latest report on the U.S. smartphone market from comScore and is based on a three-month average for November, December and January, compared with the three-month period that ended in October 2015.
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On the operating system (platform) front, Alphabet Inc.’s (NASDAQ: GOOGL) Android slipped by 0.1 points to slide from 52.9% to 52.8% and remain the top platform. Apple gained 0.3 point, rising from 43.3% in October to 43.6% in January. Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) remained flat at 2.7% share, and BlackBerry Ltd. (NASDAQ: BBRY) lost 0.2 point to post a 0.8% share in December.

The top five smartphone apps in the comScore survey were Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) with 78.4 reach for all smartphone users at least 18 years old, Facebook Messenger (64.1%), YouTube (61.1%), Google Play (51.0%),and Google Search (50.2%). Facebook and Facebook Messenger both posted gains in January and Google Search returned to the top five, replacing Google Maps. Pandora Radio from Pandora Media Inc. (NYSE: P), with a reach of 43.3%, remained in eighth-place behind Google Maps and Gmail. Instagram finished ninth and Amazon Mobile finished 10th.