Apple Is Second Largest Handset Shipper In US After Samsung; LG Ranks Third

For the very first time in its history, Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) has overtaken Korea-based LG Electronics to become the second-largest handset shipper in the United States following its South Korean rival Samsung (Seoul: 005930) which tops the chart, says a report from comScore.

According to the figures released in July, the Cupertino, Calif., tech giant was the third-largest shipper of handsets in the U.S. with a market share of 16.3 percent, compared to the second-place LG with 18.4 percent. Samsung topped with 25.6 percent of the total market share.

According to new figures for the three-month average period ending October 2012, Apple gained 1.5 percent of the mobile phone market to reach 17.8 percent of market share, which helped it surpass LG, which lost 0.8 percent and placed third in the list with 17.6 percent share of the U.S. market.

The study surveyed more than 30,000 U.S. mobile subscribers and found Samsung to be the top handset manufacturer overall with 26.3 percent market share.

When it comes to smartphone platform market share, as of October 2012, Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) Android was ranked as the top smartphone platform with 53.6 percent market share (up 1.4 percentage points) while Apple’s share increased 0.9 percentage points to 34.3 percent. Canada's Research in Motion (Nasdaq: RIMM) ranked third with 7.8 percent share, followed by Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) (3.2 percent) and Symbian (0.6 percent).

In addition, the report also provided details of mobile content usage during the period. In October, 75.9 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers used text messaging. Downloaded applications were used by 54.5 percent of subscribers while browsers were used by 52.7 percent.

Accessing of social networking sites or blogs increased 1.5 percentage points to 39.4 percent of mobile subscribers. Game-playing was done by 34.1 percent of the mobile audience while 28.7 percent listened to music on their phones.