Apple's smartphone share rockets, Android loses ground

Both Apple and Google are leading the race in the U.S. smartphone and platform rankings respectively, according to new comScore figures, but neither one has the complete pieces of the jigsaw to reign as the overall ecosystem winner.

During the three months ended in February, Apple retained hold of its lead over second place rival Samsung in the U.S. market with 38.9 percent, up 3.9 percentage points on the previous month.

Samsung by comparison grew just 1 percentage point to take 21.3 percent, but the figures reflect the period just before the "shockingly sexist" launch of the Galaxy S4, unveiled in mid-March in New York City. 

All other mobile makers in the top five, including HTC, Motorola and LG, which all develop devices for the Android platform, have lost ground.

That probably accounts for the fact that Google's mobile platform has lost 2 percentage points from the three months ended in November, but still retains the top spot with 51.7 percent of the U.S. market — more than half of all the 133.7 million smartphone owners in the country.

Apple naturally grew by the same 3.9 percentage points since the last count as a likely result of a recent explosion in number of iPhone owners. At Apple's Q1 earnings, which the company announced its December holiday sales, the iPhone maker announced that 47.8 million of its smartphones had been sold during the quarter, up from 37 million during the same quarter a year ago.

Bad news for BlackBerry owners as the platform declined by just shy of 2 percent during the three month period, holding just 5.4 percent of the market. Considering BlackBerry Z10 sales in the U.S. have only just kicked off, the next couple of month should show some growth, albeit modestly, according to BlackBerry Q4 figures.

Meanwhile Microsoft's Windows Phone platform grew slightly by 0.2 percent, and Symbian — which Nokia is still holding the pillow over its face — remained flat, showing no growth but still a steady 0.5 percent of the market with the old, outdated and defunct platform.