Apple, Samsung Gain, Windows Phone Plateaus In US — comScore

This morning comScore released its latest US smartphone report. These monthly missives have become largely static documents with little change among the various players. Indeed, the OEM and OS share charts are basically consistent the past several months.

Apple gained a point and Android lost a half a percentage point. Microsoft seems to have hit a share plateau in the US, while BlackBerry continues its slow, painful decline into the abyss.

On the OEM side Samsung and LG gained slightly (as did Apple) while Motorola (soon part of Lenovo) and HTC continued their respective slides. While Lenovo may be able to revive Motorola it’s not clear that HTC can do anything to advance vs. Samsung. It would need a breakthrough product to revive momentum.

The report further says that smartphone penetration is now nearly 67 percent in the US. I would project that it will be nearly 75 percent by year end.

The most interesting part of these comScore smartphone reports is now the ranking of mobile sites and apps, although they too are largely static. Here’s the one for January:

Compare the chart above to the chart for July 2013 (below), the first month that comScore started producing these rankings. On the mobile web side, Twitter and Pandora are the only real movers.

In terms of apps, the July 2013 and January 2014 lists are nearly identical. Google Maps has fallen from position five to number eight. Apple Maps has fallen a similar three places from position ten to thirteen.

What the charts above clearly reflect is that mobile internet time is dominated by a number of big brands and that it’s very challenging for startups and smaller players to break through into the top 15.