ComScore figures for January 2013 are now available and it seems that Apple are gaining ground. Meanwhile Android (named as “Google” above), has always increased share in these numbers, but dropped to a 52.3% share from a 53.6% share of American smartphone subscribers.
Although Android are still in front, Apple gained a 37.8% share, meaning that Android and iOS now consume a 90% share.
Those, then, are the headlines you’ll be seeing on sites across the web. However, if you look further down you’ll see that Microsoft lost share again. Down to 3.1% from 3.2%. Whilst it may not appear to be a huge drop, it’s still significant when you consider the tiny share they have already. In August 2012 comScore reported that Microsoft had a 3.6% share, and when you consider the launch of Windows Phone 8 plus the heavy Nokia advertising, it’s more than a little worrying.
Coupled with this, it’s quickly becoming apparent that the Google Android manufacturer most people are choosing is Samsung. On the chart below you can see that 21.4% the smartphone share is Samsung kit, and we already know that Google Android represents a 52.3% share. Samsung are dangerously close to getting half of all Android devices in these stats. HTC and Motorola combined (18.3%) still fall short of the 21.4% share that Samsung has. Worse still, the HTC and Moto share has fallen since October.
Source – comScore
When you see these results its easy to say why Sony are aiming for 3rd, at least they’re being realistic. I think the next quarter results will be more interesting.
There’s no way Sony could make it to 3rd place, even this year I’d estimate. They may make it to 3rd in any given month, or even quarter, but they have too much ground to make up otherwise. To do this, they’d have to exceed Samsung net sales at least four-fold, which is pretty much impossible. Pretty sure that what we see here (as in % of total market share) will not change significantly toward the end of the financial year.