Between the Lines

Larry Dignan, Andrew Nusca and Rachel King

Samsung leads as top mobile manufacturer in U.S. (report)

By | October 5, 2011, 1:38pm PDT

Summary: Android continues to dominate the smartphone platform market in the U.S., while Samsung strengthens its slot at the top of the mobile manufacturers list.

Likely much to the chagrin of Apple and its battle to bring down the Galaxy S smartphone series as well as the Galaxy Tab, Samsung had the last laugh — at least in the month of August when it concerns mobile OEMs.

Research firm comScore’s latest report reveals that Samsung retained its crown from July and was the top mobile handset manufacturer in the United States during the three month period ending in August 2011 with a quarter (25.3 percent) of the market share, which was a slight 0.5 percent increase.

The only other mobile manufacturer in the top five to see an increase during that time frame was Apple with a 1.1 percent increase to 9.8 percent of the market. Not terrible for a company that hasn’t released a new phone in a year and only had two models available at the time.

Despite the mixed reception for the iPhone 4S yesterday, surely we can expect bigger numbers (albeit maybe not as much as Apple would like or is accustomed to) for the three month period ending in October 2011 when that report is released in a few months.

On the smartphone front, it’s no surprise that Google is the continuing champion as Android was ranked as the top smartphone platform once again with 43.7 percent market share, a 5.6 percent increase. Also unsurprisingly, Apple managed to hold on to second place with 27.3 percent, a 0.7 percent increase.

Although it stayed in third place, RIM dropped the most with a five percent change, while Microsoft and Symbian slipped 0.1 percent and 0.3 percent respectively.

The report reflects the responses from more than 30,000 U.S. mobile subscribers aged 13 and older.

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Topics

Rachel King is a staff writer for ZDNet based in San Francisco.

Disclosure

Rachel King

Rachel King has no business relationships, affiliations, investments, or other potential conflicts of interest relating to the content posted in this blog.

Biography

Rachel King

Rachel King is a staff writer for CBS Interactive in San Francisco. Before serving as a contributing editor at ZDNet in New York City for two years, she previously worked for The Business Insider, FastCompany.com, CNN's San Francisco bureau and the U.S. Department of State. Rachel has also written for MainStreet.com, Irish America Magazine and the New York Daily News, among others. Rachel has a B.A. in Mass Communications and History from the University of California, Berkeley and a M.S. in Journalism from Columbia University, where she served as art director for the student magazine, Plated.

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ndppzqn 96 ghi
cdfwekrwe30-24379022533192879757498957629306 25th Nov
brzqfp,uppanwuq25, jroem.
Assistant: Who is top mobile manufacturer in US?
@AdnanPirota It's apple of cource.
oyun
... being number one handsets manufacturer has nothing to do with Apple and Samsung's 'last laugh': these companies do not compete with each other on regular handset market, and where they compete, on smartphones market, Apple has not only the last laugh, but all of the laughs -- both all the previous and in the foreseeable future.
@DeRSSS in the area where I am writing from (south-eastern Europe) people think that in U.S. there is no other brand present and that everyone (big and small) use iPhones (at least that's the impression we get from Apple keynotes) so this news comes as a big surprise (not to mention that I think that soon, very soon, Samsung will be No 1 smartphone producer, as I do not see people buying the same phone like the one they bought last year)
@AdnanPirota: So I do not know how anyone could think from keynotes that all of people use iPhone.

And, of course, Samsung hardly will become #1 producer of smartphones since Apple lowered price for iPhone 3Gs (and Apple still much bigger smartphones seller). It should be now cheap even on non-subsidized markets.

Lets see in the end of January how much Apple's new model and pricing for the older iPhones helps them.
@AdnanPirota
It's generally the US media that habitually portrays/champions Apple products as if there are no others. Maybe they need a US product very badly to appear to lead the world? Or maybe it's just their extreme myopia; media/journalists having been schooled with Apple products, know not much else. Quite dumb really, when it is already quite apparent that the world has not voted with their wallets the way the US media think they have.
@DeRSSS

Smartphones and regular phones are both "mobile".

And Samsung is still king.

Dont try to segment the market into Apple's advantage.

Even with smartphone OS's, Google still leads the market in the US.
0 Votes
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Has Apple Jumped The Shark?
Heenan73 5th Oct
Certainly explains why Apple are trying soooo hard to contain Samsung by patent wars; in fact, most of their innovation these days seems to be in the courtroom, regardless of how uncool that makes them look.

Apple's sales may rise again - briefly - but their reputation might not. Too soon to bet on it, but I have a suspicion that with recent events in court and with iPhone, Apple has jumped the shark.

Next comScore may confirm.
@Heenan73
I'd say so.

Of course Apple will get a boost from the 4S, but I think mid-to-long term it's not a good outlook for the iPhone.

The 4S is a nice little update, but it's nothing special. It doesn't raise iPhone's hardware above the Android handsets on the market and coming up. It doesn't address the fact that Microsoft have created a much more elegant and advanced mobile OS. It leaves iPhone in the middle with nothing special to offer.

The advantage the iPhone has is from its branding, mindshare, and ecosystem. But will that be enough to prop up what is no longer a special phone? Perhaps it will get them by until they can come up with something interesting.

And now that people are becoming more aware of other smartphones, the less tech savvy who have so far equated 'iPhone' with 'phone that can run apps' may start to see through the emperor's new clothes.
Samsung has built a better array of products over RIM, Motorola, HTC, and LG over the 4 big carriers. Samsung also marketed its flagship Android phone better than he others and positioned itself as the most "Apple-Like" among the less sleek and sexy "Droids".
Apple, arguably a better device is just that - ONE Model, limited in distribution for 4 years on America's slowest data and worst call quality network, AT&T, who spins its worst quality standing as "The Network of Possibilities".
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ndppzqn 96 ghi
cdfwekrwe30-24379022533192879757498957629306 25th Nov
brzqfp,uppanwuq25, jroem.

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