Apple iPhone Leads US Smartphone Market In May With 42% Share, Samsung Gains Too

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) remained the leading smartphone manufacturer in the U.S., while also making small gains in market share during the three-month period ending in May, according to a new report from comScore.

Apple was the top smartphone original equipment manufacturer, or OEM, with a 41.9 percent share of the market, up from 41.3 percent in the preceding three months. Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. (KRX:005930) ranked second with a 27.8 percent market share, while LG Electronics Inc. (KRX:066570), Motorola and HTC Corp (TPE:2498) rounded off the top five.

While Apple’s iPhone was the most popular smartphone in the three months leading to May, Google Inc.’s (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Android mobile operating system led the smartphone platform segment despite not increasing its market share, which stood at 52.1 percent. Apple’s iOS was in second position with a 41.9 percent share of the market, followed by Microsoft Corporation’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) Windows Phone, Blackberry OS and Symbian.

In addition to top smartphone OEMs and platforms, the comScore report also provided a list of top smartphone applications for the same period, which showed that Facebook's app led the pack reaching 76.4 percent of users. Other apps to make it to the top five included Google Play, YouTube, Google Search and Pandora Radio.

iPhone Loses To Android Worldwide

Although the iPhone dominated the U.S. smartphone market, it has a lot of catching up to do in markets worldwide where it trailed its Android-powered counterparts in the three months ending in May, according to Forbes, which cited a report from Kantar Worldpanel.

According to Kantar data, iPhone’s global market share was reportedly at 32.5 percent during the period while Android’s market share stood at 61.9 percent.

“The Samsung Galaxy S5 has had some success in attracting former iPhone owners across Europe. In general, consumers buying the Galaxy S5 were primarily attracted by its large screen size. This is something Apple is likely to address with the rumoured larger screen iPhone 6 launch expected in late September,” Dominic Sunnebo, strategic insight director at Kantar Worldpanel, said in a statement.

“Apple loyalty is high in the US, with former iPhone owners making up just 8% of Galaxy S5 sales. The majority of those switching to Samsung were LG and HTC users.”