Samsung, Android Remain On Top In U.S. Mobile, Apple Supplants LG As No.2 With 53% Smartphone Penetration: comScore

By one account Apple is having a very strong quarter in the U.S. in smartphone sales on the strength of the iPhone 5, but overall, Android and specifically Samsung are continuing to dominate the market. According to figures out today from comScore, there are 123.3 million people in the U.S. using smartphones as of November 2012, and Android represents 53.7 of them. Among all mobile users — smartphone and otherwise — 26.9% of them are using Samsung devices.

The figures, the result of a survey of some 30,000 consumers as part of comScores ongoing MobiLens research, found that Apple’s iPhones account for 35% of all smartphone subscribers, and that its overall mobile share is now at 26.9%. That was enough to put Apple ahead of LG as the country’s number-two mobile brand, with LG now at 17.5%, and Motorola and HTC continuing to round out the top-five, but with smaller market shares than three months before.

The survey, of course, does not include holiday shopping figures, so it will be interesting to see whether Apple inches closer to Samsung, or even surpasses it, as a result of that period. According to figures from Kantar Worldpanel, Apple’s iPhone, in the 12 weeks that ended November 25, reached its highest-ever sales share in the U.S. market at 53.3%.

Top Mobile OEMs
3 Month Avg. Ending Nov. 2012 vs. 3 Month Ending Aug. 2012
Total U.S. Mobile Subscribers (Smartphone & Non-Smartphone) Ages 13+
Source: comScore MobiLens
Share (%) of Mobile Subscribers
Aug-12 Nov-12 Point Change
Total Mobile Subscribers 100.0% 100.0% N/A
Samsung 25.7% 26.9% 1.2
Apple 17.1% 18.5% 1.4
LG 18.2% 17.5% -0.7
Motorola 11.2% 10.4% -0.8
HTC 6.3% 5.9% -0.4
comScore also found that the percentage of mobile consumers using smartphones continues to climb. They now stand at 53%, and just as before the rankings continue to demonstrate that it’s an Android/iOS game: RIM, Microsoft and Symbian all lost market share.

Top Smartphone Platforms
3 Month Avg. Ending Nov. 2012 vs. 3 Month Avg. Ending Aug. 2012
Total U.S. Smartphone Subscribers Ages 13+
Source: comScore MobiLens
Share (%) of Smartphone Subscribers
Aug-12 Nov-12 Point Change
Total Smartphone Subscribers 100.0% 100.0% N/A
Google 52.6% 53.7% 1.1
Apple 34.3% 35.0% 0.7
RIM 8.3% 7.3% -1.0
Microsoft 3.6% 3.0% -0.6
Symbian 0.7% 0.5% -0.2
But despite the ongoing move to smartphones, people are still using their devices for low-tech activities.  Texting remains the most popular form of “mobile content usage” according to comScore, with 75.9% of all consumers saying that they have used their phones for this purpose, and it’s still growing.

App usage is in second position, with 54.2% of consumers noting that they use apps. That grew by 0.8 percentage points, and while at one point web browsing was more popular, it shows that apps are continuing to pull away from mobile browser usage, which grew by only 0.1 percentage points over last quarter. In all, 52.1% of users noting that they used their mobile web browsers.

Among more specific content activities (as opposed to generic “app usage” or “mobile web browsing,” social networking, gaming, and music remained the top-three most popular categories, with gaming the only one among them to lose some popularity.

Mobile Content Usage
3 Month Avg. Ending Nov. 2012 vs. 3 Month Avg. Ending Aug. 2012
Total U.S. Mobile Subscribers (Smartphone & Non-Smartphone) Ages 13+
Source: comScore MobiLens
Share (%) of Mobile Subscribers
Aug-12 Nov-12 Point Change
Total Mobile Subscribers 100.0% 100.0% N/A
Sent text message to another phone 75.6% 75.9% 0.3
Used downloaded apps 53.4% 54.2% 0.8
Used browser 52.0% 52.1% 0.1
Accessed social networking site or blog 38.3% 39.2% 0.9
Played Games 34.0% 33.7% -0.3
Listened to music on mobile phone 28.3% 28.7% 0.4

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