Apple's U.S. Smartphone Usage Share Continues to Climb

ComScore today released the results of its monthly rolling survey of U.S. mobile phone users for the September-November 2013 period, showing that Apple's U.S. smartphone market share has increased 0.5 percentage points for a total share of 41.2 percent. Though Apple's share continues to grow, it still lags behind Android's total share of 51.9 percent.

When measuring usage by handset manufacturer, Apple continued to come in first place by a wide margin, with Samsung coming in second at 26 percent and Motorola, LG, and HTC bringing up the rear with just over 6 percent share each.

152.5 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones (63.8 percent mobile market penetration) during the three months ending in November, up 3 percent since August. Apple ranked as the top OEM with 41.2 percent of U.S. smartphone subscribers (up 0.5 percentage points from August). Samsung ranked second with 26 percent market share (up 1.7 percentage points), followed by Motorola with 6.7 percent, LG with 6.5 percent and HTC with 6.4 percent.

Collectively, Apple and Google control 93.1 percent of the U.S. smartphone market, with BlackBerry, Microsoft, and Symbian losing share during the November period.

ComScore's data tracks installed user base rather than new handset sales, which means it is more reflective of real-world usage but slower to respond to shifting market trends than some other studies.