The January Smartphone Story: Android Slips, Apple Gains, Feature Phones Fade

The US smartphone story has been pretty consistent for well over a year: Android is now on more than 50 percent of US smartphones, followed by iOS. All others are losing share.

Samsung and Apple continue to battle for the top two OEM positions in the market (and around the world). January data from comScore largely repeat and affirm this story line.

According to comScore’s survey data Android had a 52.3 percent market share in January. However the Google operating system slipped a bit (1.3 points) as the iPhone gained. Apple’s share grew 3.5 percent to 37.8 percent. The US is probably the iPhone’s strongest market.

BlackBerry, Microsoft and Nokia’s Symbian all lost share, a trend that has been consistent for months.

On the hardware front, Apple was the top individual smartphone manufacturer in the US, followed by Samsung. HTC and Google’s Motorola lost share — although LG (buoyed by the Nexus 4) gained.

ComScore has essentially stopped reporting on feature phones. According to device tracker IDC, global smartphone shipments will exceed those of feature phones for the first time this year.

Source: IDC

China will be the largest smartphone market globally according to the projection. Android is the dominant operating system in China by a significant margin.

Smartphone penetration in the US is quickly approaching 60 percent and will probably reach that level by the end of Q2 this year.