US smartphone figures out for the Feb quarter. Who won?

comScore has released its latest smartphone numbers for the three months ending February, and as expected, Android continues its industry leading growth.

Despite the US being the home ground and the most successful single market for its main competitor, the Android platform took more than half of the US market, an increase of 17 points compared to the same period in 2010/2011.


That compares well against iOS’s 30.2% share and more modest 5% growth year on year. Especially given that December is included in that three months, and much was being made by the analysts, bloggerati and media about the iPhone’s “blowout” quarterly figures. It seems that AndroidNZ’s prediction was on the money and that iPhone sales have dropped off considerably following the holidays, seemingly more so than usual.

It’s worth noting that Android’s US growth was more than triple iOS’s, which is no mean feat when one considers that it already has a significantly higher market share than Apple’s OS.

As Apple’s support base are keen on reminding us though, market share isn’t everything and the Cupertino Collossus still grabs the lion’s share of industry profit, so don’t expect tears at #1 Infinite Loop just yet. But… despite much prognostication about Android failing to maintain its astonishing growth, it doesn’t seem to be faltering yet.

And it’s highly likely that Mr Rubin will announce that Android activations have exceeded the magic “million a day” milestone in the coming days.

Handset makers

Although comScore doesn’t break out the data by smartphones vs feature phones, and instead lumps them all together, we’ll throw out their figures for the need-to-know folks.

• Samsung was at No. 1 in the US with 25.6%
• LG made waves with its 19.4%
• Apple took a strong third place at 13.5% with only smartphones in its arsenal
• Motorola achieved 12.8%, a gnat’s behind Cupertino’s finest
• and HTC took fifth with 6.3%

Without knowing what percentage of Sammy’s phones were smart, it’s still seemingly pretty darn competitive with Apple’s efforts. But for confirmation, we’ll need to wait for the quarterly financials from the Korean Titan.

All in all, a pleasing quarter for the Android universe. Apple’s fanbase may not be quite so pleased.

Source: comScore