Smartphones Pass Feature Phones, US Apple Growth Exceeds Others

IDC today released a device forecast that showed global smartphone shipments exceeding those of feature phones for the first time this year. Fueled in part by declining prices, smartphone growth is now taking off in emerging markets, as well.

Back in the US, comScore released its monthly smartphone marketshare report.

Among individual manufacturers, Apple controlled 39.2 percent of the market (up 1.4 percent since January). Samsung was second with 22 percent (up 0.6 percent). Following Samsung in order were HTC (8.9 percent), Motorola (8.3 percent) and LG (6.7 percent). All three have lost market share since December.

Below are the operating system shares in the US smartphone market according to comScore:

Compare those findings to survey data released this week by Kantar Worldpanel ComTech. Kanter had generally similar percentages for Apple and Google/Android. However, its findings regarding BlackBerry and Windows Phone diverge from comScore’s data above.

Source: Kantar Worldpanel

ComScore says that 138.5 million people in the US own smartphones for a total of 58 percent penetration. Nielsen’s number is about 60 or 61 percent.

Below are StatCounter data showing how much Web traffic is being driven by each of the competing mobile operating systems in the US market and globally.

US market:

• iOS: 54 percent
• Android: 40 percent
• Windows Phone: 1.3 percent
• Other: 4.7 percent

Globally:

• Android: 38 percent
• iOS: 26 percent
• Symbian: 8 percent
• BlackBerry: 3.5 percent
• Windows Phone: 1.3 percent
• Other: 23 percent