Samsung still rules U.S. mobile market
Samsung continues to reign over the rest of the mobile-phone industry in the U.S., according to the latest stats from ComScore.Looking at the three months ending with November, Samsung won 26.9 percent of all mobile subscribers in the U.S., a 1.2 point gain from the prior three-month period. Apple took home second place with 18.5 percent of the market, a gain of 1.4 points.Samsung continues to wear the crown, but its share hasn't grown much from a year ago. In contrast, Apple has slowly been rising up the ranks. For the three months ending with November 2011, Samsung's U.S. mobile share was 25.6 percent. At the same time, Apple was in fourth place with a share of just 11.2 percent.Samsung has enjoyed huge demand for its Galaxy S3 smartphone. But the iPhone 5 has given Apple a big boost. Some analysts predict higher sales than initially expected, especially since supply of the new iPhone caught up with demand in November.The other top three mobile players haven't fared as well, all watching their market share inch down for the three months ending with November 2012. In third place, LG grabbed 18.2 percent of the market, followed by Motorola with 11.2 percent and HTC with 6.3 percent.ComScoreAmong smartphone operating systems, Android was the top dog as usual with 53.7 percent of the market, a gain of 1.1 points. Apple's iOS was second with a 35 percent share, up slightly less than a percentage point. And the other platforms continued to see their shares go down.RIM's BlackBerry OS grabbed third place with a 7.3 percent share, followed by Microsoft's Windows Phone with 3 percent and Nokia's Symbian with half a point. For the three months ended with November, 123 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones, accounting for 53 percent of all mobile-phone ownership.
