comScore today released the results of its monthly rolling survey of U.S. mobile phone users for the August-September 2013 period, showing that Apple's smartphone market share rose to 40.6 percent, compared to Android's 51.8 percent over the same period.
For handset manufacturers, Apple was in first place by a wide margin, with second place Samsung holding 25.4 percent of the market.
149.2 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones (62.5 percent mobile market penetration) during the three months ending in October, up 4.1 percent since July. Apple ranked as the top OEM with 40.6 percent of U.S. smartphone subscribers (up 0.2 percentage points from July). Samsung ranked second with 25.4 percent market share (up 1.3 percentage points), while Motorola made the leap to third with 7 percent (up 0.1 percentage points). HTC and LG followed with 6.7 percent and 6.6 percent, respectively.
Collectively, Apple and Google control 92.2 percent of the market, with BlackBerry and Symbian losing share, while Microsoft's Windows Phone platform gained slightly.
comScore's data tracks installed user base rather than new handset sales, which means it is more reflective of real-world usage but slower to respond to shifting market trends than some other studies.
