Apple Inc. (AAPL) Making Headway, While Others Face Headwinds

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is continuing to make progress in the smartphone marketplace, at least according to the latest numbers from comScore. In the three-month period that ended in April, while the smartphone marketplace as a whole in the U.S. grew again, only the Apple iOS platform saw an increase in market share from the quarter that ended in January.

Overall, comScore reported that the overall smartphone market in the U.S. grew by 7 percent from January to April, to 138.5 million total subscribers – or about 58 percent of the total mobile market in the country. And it seems that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) took the best advantage of the growing market, as its market share growth was positive, while Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android, Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) and Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) Windows Phone all could not keep up and posted negative market share growth. Overall, while the market grew at a 7-percent clip, Apple was able to grab an additional 1.4 percentage points of market share from January, from 37.8 percent to 92.2 percent. That signifies a net gain from 48.9 million subscribers in January to 54.1 million in April, or 5.2 million additional iPhone subscribers.

The overall market leader, Android by Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG), lost ground from 52.3 percent of the market to 52 percent, despite gaining 4.2 million subscribers (from 67.7 million to 72 million). The third-place OS, BlackBerry by Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY), saw the largest drop among the top platforms, as the company feel from 5.9 percent of the market to 5.1 percent, which meant it lost about half a million subscribers, from 7.6 million in January to about 7.1 million in April. In fourth place is Windows Phone by Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), which lost marginally in market share from 3.1 percent to 3 percent but it gained about 150,000 subscribers, from 4.01 million to about 4.16 million.

Among handsets, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) continues to lead the market with 39-percent share, followed by Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. with 22 percent, though Apple did widen its lead from January. Three months earlier, Apple led Samsung by 16.4 percentage points; now it leads by 16.8 points.

Let us know your thoughts about this latest market share report in the comments section below. If Apple gains in a three-month period where it had no new smartphones launched, what could this say for Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and for Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) when Android cannot pull away during a down time?

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