Apple Increases Share of U.S. Smartphone Activations in Q2

During the second quarter of 2018, spanning from April to June, Apple's iPhones accounted for 36 percent of total U.S. smartphone activations, an improvement over last year's numbers where iPhone activations accounted for just over 30 percent of total activations, according to new numbers shared today by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners [PDF].

More customers are choosing iPhone over Samsung devices this year, and Apple's higher number of activations came at Samsung's expense. During the quarter, Samsung devices were also responsible for 36 percent of new activations, but for Samsung, that's a solid decline from last year.

"Apple improved in part at Samsung's expense, whose share of activations declined relative to both last quarter and last year," said Mike Levin, Partner and Co-Founder of CIRP. "In a quarter without any significant phone launches, Samsung had market share only equal to Apple's. A year ago, Samsung had a considerably greater share of sales."

Apple devices and Samsung devices are the dominant brands, due to ongoing consolidation of the U.S. market. LG and Motorola, for example, have lost ground to Apple and Samsung over the course of the last year.

When it comes to operating systems, iOS and Android are, by far, the dominant operating systems in use. iOS accounted for 36 percent of activations during the quarter, while Android, which runs on an array of different smartphones from multiple manufacturers, accounted for 63 percent of U.S. activations.


Compared to last year, iOS's share of activations grew, with CIRP citing increased customer loyalty to their operating system of choice. Given the sheer number of Android devices compared to iOS devices, it's not surprising Android devices are responsible for approximately two thirds of activations.

Consumer Intelligence Research Partners regularly shares these surveys to monitor the state of the smartphone market. Findings are based on a survey of 500 subjects who activated new or used phones during the April to June 2018 period.