US Android Market Share Down, iOS Up in July

With the smartphone space being as hot as it is right now, practically every research firm releases regular updates on the state of the market in quarterly — and even monthly — increments. The latest smartphone market data for the U.S. comes from comScore, comparing the month of July to that of April.

Starting with manufacturers, Apple held its position as top OEM in July, even managing to grow its share from 39.2 percent in April to 40.4 percent. Of course, rival manufacturer Samsung still remains in second place and also grew its share from an even 22 percent in April to 24.1 percent in July.

This growth comes at the expense of all other active OEMs in the U.S. In fact, third place manufacturer HTC dropped 0.9 percent to an even 8 percent and Motorola dropped 1.4 percent to sit at 6.9 percent. Fifth place OEM LG, on the other hand, actually gained share, but only by 0.1 percent, to reach 6.8 percent.

OEM figures are all well and good, but it’s the mobile platforms that most people really care about. That said, there wasn’t much change between April and July. Android still reigns supreme, followed by Apple’s iOS, BlackBerry, Microsoft devices and Symbian.

Of these, only iOS gained share, jumping up 1.2 percent to sit at 40.4 percent, while Android slumped 0.2 percent to 51.8 percent. This may not seem very significant, but for many it signals the end of Android’s growth and may even result in iOS one day becoming the top platform in the United States once more.

It’s worth noting, though, that Q2 U.S. smartphone market data from Kantar’s Worldpanel ComTech report states that Android grew its market share over the first quarter. So take from that what you will.

Lastly, comScore reported on Web properties and apps. In terms of the former, Google sites accounted for 92.6 percent of the mobile media audience, followed by Facebook, Yahoo sites and Amazon sites at 86.3, 81.7 and 66.8 percent, respectively. As far as apps go, Facebook took the top spot, followed by Google-owned apps such as YouTube and Google Play.