Android and Samsung rule the smartphone market, but Apple's the fastest riser

In a month filled with important announcements from respective smartphone manufacturers, including Apple, Nokia, Motorola Mobility and HTC, comScore has published its Mobile Subscriber Market Share report that places Samsung ahead of all other device makers and Android miles ahead of all other mobile platforms.

The report surveyed 30,000 mobile subscribers in the United States and found that Samsung holds 25.6% market share as of July 2012. This has actually decreased by 0.3% since April 2012, although it’s nearest competitor LG fell by 0.8% to 18.4% market share. In third place is Apple with the largest quarterly gain of 1.9% to 16.3%. Motorola Mobility fell significantly by 1.3% to 11.2%, while HTC showed modest gains of 0.4% to 6.4% market share.

“Smartphone ownership in the United States has risen to 114 million”

Smartphone ownership in the United States has risen by 7% to 114 million. Google’s Android operating system is easily the most popular at 52.2%, gaining 1.4% in the three month average ending July 2012 when compared to the previous three months. Apple’s operating system, iOS, witnessed the largest gains again, up 2% to 33.4% market share. RIM unsurprisingly fell by 2.1% to 9.5%, while Microsoft and Symbian both witnessed slight share losses, now standing at 3.6% and 0.8% respectively.

The study also found that mobile phone users (both smartphone and feature phone) are using their devices more often. Text messaging is up 1.5% to 75.6%, meaning that three-quarters of all mobile phone users had messaged another mobile device. 52.6% of users had downloaded apps (up 2.4%), 51.2% had used a mobile browser (up 2.2%), 37.9% had accessed a social networking site like Twitter or Facebook, or had accessed a blog, up 1.9%, and 33.8% had played games on their mobile device, up 0.7%. The biggest gainer in mobile content usage was music with 28.3% of people having listened to music on their mobile device, up 2.5%.

So in short what do all these statistics mean? Apple is most definitely continuing its unstoppable rise. Android will continue to gain at the expense of RIM, Symbian and possibly Microsoft, and will keep number one spot for some time. Samsung found a winner in its partnership with Android. Users are accessing content on mobile in their droves, especially music. Symbian is dead. RIM is f**ked.