Samsung, Apple mobile duopoly keeps rolling

Samsung and Apple continue to dominate the smartphone landscape and it's unclear what the rest of the field can do to dent the mobile tag-team.

According to comScore's data for November 2012, Samsung had 26.9 percent of the mobile market in the U.S., up 1.2 percent from August. Apple had 18.5 percent of the market in November, up from 17.1 percent in August. LG, Motorola and HTC all lost market share. Motorola, acquired by Google, lost the most share of the bunch.

By platform, Google and Apple control 85.7 percent of the smartphone market. Research in Motion is a distant No. 3 with 7.3 percent of the smartphone market in November. Microsoft had 3 percent of the market.

Some takeaways from the data worth pondering:

• Samsung and Apple both have the scale to work production and supply chain economies of scale.
• It's not clear what beyond patents Google got for its Motorola Mobility acquisition.
• HTC could easily fall out of the top 5 in the U.S.
• Microsoft's Windows Phone platform isn't lighting up the standings in the U.S.
• RIM's share is worrisome, but still has the best position to be the No. 3 platform of choice if BlackBerry 10 keeps the installed base happy.