iPhones Grow in Popularity, But Android Platform Still Leads

Apple continues to lead the pack in the U.S. as a smartphone make.   To iPhone users, that’s probably not a surprise.  iPhone users tend to be loyal fans.

More than 39 percent of mobile subscribers in the 3 month average ending April used Apple smartphones, comScore reports. That’s more than any other smartphone maker.

And popularity is growing.  April’s figures are a 1.4 percent increase over Apple’s share of the market as measured in January. The company’s market share in this category actually increased by nearly a full percentage point over its closest competitor, Samsung.

Here is how the rest of the smartphone market breaks down:

Samsung was next, with 22 percent of the market, up just over half a percentage point since January. These figures could change in favor of Samsung if the company sees customers confidently buying its Galaxy S4 smartphone or its competitively priced Galaxy S4 Mini (when it’s released).

Phone makes HTC (9.7%), Motorola (8.6%), and LG (7%) follow.

Android Leads, If Measured By Operating Platform

If you count by operating platforms — instead of phone makers — the story is different.

Google’s Android continues to dominate in the smartphone operating system market. This market is measured by the number of subscribers using the Android operating system, versus a particular make of phone.

According to comScore’s MobiLens service, over half of the 138.5 million smartphone users in the U.S. have phones running Google’s Android platform. But Android’s lead among operating systems decreased nearly two full percentage points from January to April.

Apple’s iOS, of course, is next at 39% and saw a 1.4 percent increase as mentioned above.

BlackBerry and Windows phones’ market shares each dropped a bit, less than a percentage point over the same period, according to the MobiLens survey.

MobiLens gets its information from a nationwide sample of smartphone subscribers over the age of 13. Only primary mobile phone numbers are used to collect data.

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