Apple, Google, Samsung All Show Gains in U.S. Mobile Market

Apple, Google, and Samsung all showed some kind of gains in the U.S. cellphone market in the three months ending in July, according to new data published by comScore. The firm released a report on U.S. carrier subscribers that showed Apple gained in total handsets and smartphone market share, while Samsung also gained in handsets. Google’s Android and Apple’s iPhone platforms gained smartphone share at the expense of all other competitors.

Apple is the fourth largest handset manufacturer in the U.S., according to comScore’s data. This category counts all mobile handsets, and not just smartphones, where Apple competes with its iPhone. Apple gains 1.2% of the market, to grow from 8.3% to 9.5%. Samsung grew from 24.5% to 25.5%, while LG stayed the same at 20.9%. Motorola lost share, as did Research In Motion.

The chart below shows the top five handset makers in the three months ending in April 2011 compared to the three months ending in July.

U.S. Handset Market Share

Chart by The Mac Observer from comScore data

The research firm said that 82.2 million subscribers are now using smartphones in the U.S., a 10% climb compared to the previous three month period. Not surprisingly, Google’s Android was the big winner in the new report, climbing from 37.5% of the smartphone market to 42.6%.

Apple’s iPhone was the only other gainer, as the company went from 26.8% to 27.5% of the market. RIM’s BlackBerry platform dropped 4.1% to 22.1%, while Microsoft and Symbian also lost share.

U.S. Smartphone Market Share

Chart by The Mac Observer from comScore data

In short, Android and iPhone are the only smartphone platforms that are showing any growth as past stalwarts continue to languish. At the same time, Apple is continuing its run as a major hardware player.

While slightly more than one in four handsets in the U.S. are Samsung devices, a little more than one in eleven are iPhones, and considering the reality that Samsung offers dozens of models and Apple offers two (iPhone 3Gs and the iPhone 4), it’s easy to understand why Apple rakes in the lion’s share of hardware profits.