Smartphone Data: Android Regains Share, But Apple Maps Wins The iPhone

According to comScore’s latest data (October 2015), 78 percent of US mobile subscribers own smartphones. I suspect we’ll reach 80 percent penetration before the end of the year. Beyond this, things remain mostly the same in terms of market share and mobile app rankings.

Apple’s share is down nearly a point, but the data don’t include Q4 holiday-related device sales. Android’s market share is up 1.5 points compared with July. Windows Phones are off by 0.2 points. Absent some radical innovation or design change, Microsoft’s smartphone OS share in the US is on life support.

Device forecaster IDC says that globally smartphone growth will slow next year to “single digits” for the first time. Even so, growth will be near 10 percent globally. Slowing growth in China is partly responsible. Many mature markets are now “replacement markets.”

Globally, Android has 81 percent market share to the iPhone’s 16 percent.

Source: IDC Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, December 2, 2015

Returning to the comScore US data, below is the now-familiar top 15 apps list. Like smartphone market share, this doesn’t tend to change very much. Facebook continues to be the dominant single app, while Google has the most apps in the top 10.

According to the comScore list, Google Maps has just under 50 percent penetration, while Apple Maps has 28 percent of the market. This is somewhat curious, because I would assume that every Apple user would be counted toward Apple Maps penetration (40+ percent share) — unless the data above measure usage compared with simple presence on the device.

If monthly usage is the measure that suggests a meaningful percentage of iPhone owners aren’t using Apple Maps. However, Apple CEO Tim Cook has said its maps are used three times more than the next mapping competitor (read: Google) on the iPhone. And according to this AP article, comScore confirms that Apple Maps are more widely used on iPhones than Google Maps.