Apple, Google, and the Smartphone Wars

Google Android Still Ahead of Apple iOS in Smartphone Wars

The latest mobile usage and market share data from comScore is out and with it we get a snapshot of who’s up and who’s down platform-wise:

74.6 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the three months ending in April 2011, up 13 percent from the three-month period ending in January 2011. Google Android ranked as the top operating system with 36.4 percent of U.S. smartphone subscribers, up 5.2 percentage points. Apple also gained share, capturing the #2 position with 26.0 percent of the smartphone market. RIM ranked third with 25.7 percent share, followed by Microsoft (6.7 percent) and Palm (2.6 percent).

But you’ll never guess how this shakes out in terms of OEM manufacturers of the phones themselves. If you’re looking at those platform percentages and thinking that, given platform share, Apple and RIM devices must be half the market, you’d be very wrong.

The leader is actually Samsung with 24.5% phone marketshare. Apple and RIMM combined are under 20%. (UPDATED: Jeff points out below that I did not mention this is for mobile handsets and not smartphones)

Head over for the full smartphone report.

Source:

comScore Reports April 2011 U.S. Mobile Subscriber Market Share (comScore)

Joshua M Brown is a New York City-based financial advisor and stockbroker. He is also the author of The Reformed Broker blog and his work has been featured by virtually every major financial publicat ...read more