Apple, Google Still Top Smartphone Market

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By Paul Ausick Updated Published
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iPhone_5_FrontBack
courtesy of Apple Inc.
In a refrain we’ve all heard more than once already, research firm comScore Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) reported today that the U.S. market share leader among smartphone manufacturers is Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) and the leader in operating system platform market share is Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG). No big surprises there.

On a rolling average basis for the months of November, December, and January, Apple claims 37.8% of the handset market, up 3.5% from its October 2012 average of 34.3%. Samsung Electronics finished second, up 1.9% in January, from 19.5% to 21.4%. HTC Corp., Motorola (now part of Google), and LG Electronics rounded out the top five, with only LG posting a small (0.3%) share gain.

On the platform side, Google’s Android operating system took the top spot with a 52.3% share, down from 53.6% in October. Apple’s iOS platform picked up 3.5% in market share, to move from a 34.3% share to a 37.8% share. Apple took share from each of the top five platform providers: Google, BlackBerry (NASDAQ: BBRY), Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT), and Symbian. Only Apple and Google posted double-digit market shares.

The U.S. release of BlackBerry’s new operating system and touchscreen handset is set for next week, but any impact won’t show up until the March report which is due in April. The news is not so good for Microsoft, which had high hopes for its Windows Phone 8 platform.

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About the Author Paul Ausick →

Paul Ausick has been writing for a673b.bigscoots-temp.com for more than a decade. He has written extensively on investing in the energy, defense, and technology sectors. In a previous life, he wrote technical documentation and managed a marketing communications group in Silicon Valley.

He has a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Chicago and now lives in Montana, where he fishes for trout in the summer and stays inside during the winter.

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