comScore has released its latest snapshot of the U.S. smartphone market for the three months ended in January. The average number of cellphone users in the U.S. age 13 or older in that time frame was a whopping 234 million. Of those, 101.3 million were using a smartphone. The MobiLens survey was based on the answers given by 30,000 U.S. mobile subscribers.
Text messaging is the function used by most
On top of the Stateside smartphone list is Samsung. The Korean based manufacturer had 25.4% of the market in January, down a tick from the 25.5% slice of the pie it owned in October. Thanks to the launch of the Apple iPhone 4S, the Cupertino based firm had the strongest gain in the three months, adding two full points to its market share which left it with 12.8% of the U.S. smartphone market. For Apple, that was good enough for fourth place. LG, which had the biggest drop of the top 5 manufacturers with a .9% loss of market share, finished second behind its fellow countryman with a 19.7% share. With 13.2% of the market, Motorola was third even after dropping .4% from the previous report. RIM finished in fifth place with a static 6.6% share of the U.S. smartphone market.
With 48.6% of the smartphone market running on Android as of January, Google's open source OS added 2.3% from its October share to lead all smartphone platforms in the U.S.. Apple was the only other platform to pick up some market share in the three months ended January. The company added 1.4% to its share to own 29.5% of the U.S. smartphone market. RIM's third place share of 15.2% (-2.0% since October) put it well ahead of Microsoft's 4.4% (-1%) and the 1.5% belonging to Symbian (-.1%).
Text messaging remains the most widely used function as 74.6% of Stateside smartphone users give their thumb a workout by texting on their handset. Browser use and app use have flip flopped showing how strongly apps have been in demand. 48.6% of users are installing and opening up apps while 48.5% use their phone's mobile browser. While 35.7% visit social networks or a blog, 31.8% played games and just 24.5% use their smartphone to play tunes.
Alan, an ardent smartphone enthusiast and a veteran writer at PhoneArena since 2009, has witnessed and chronicled the transformative years of mobile technology. Owning iconic phones from the original iPhone to the iPhone 15 Pro Max, he has seen smartphones evolve into a global phenomenon. Beyond smartphones, Alan has covered the emergence of tablets, smartwatches, and smart speakers.
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