Apple’s iOS Tops 30% Of US Smartphone Market Share

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Apple's iOS Tops 30% Of US Smartphone Market Share

A new report from comScore shows that the operating system used by Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is now responsible for 30.2 % of all smartphone activations in the United States. The report from comScore details the share of the smartphone market held by different platforms and manufacturer and als0 shows the usage of phones in the US. Apple’s results continue to roar ahead.

Earlier today JPMorgan increased its projections of the company’s sales this quarter while yesterday, a Topeka analyst, suggested the firm should break $1000 in the next twelve months. They must be doing something right.

The report by comScore showed that the company was still behind Android in activations, Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)’s operating system is at 50.1%, and it seems that market growth is not at the expense of its biggest competitor but at the likes of RIM and Microsoft who both have declining shares of activation.

The activation figures don’t tell the full story though. Apple has climbed above Motorola to become the third largest manufacturer in the market, behind LG and top placed Samsung. The range of phones available with the Android system installed is enormous, and they are significantly different in price and functionality.

Samsung offers a huge range of phones with several different carriers priced all over the market. This confuses the market share numbers a little. Apple has one model and they sell to the same range of customers mainle. Though there are price differences depending on memory the iPhone is still a premiere product. It battles directly with the Samsung Galax S II and the Google Nexus not with the lower grade Android 2.3 models.

This is the key difference that must be noted when statistics like this come out. Samsung has 25.6% of the market while apple has 13.5%. But every single one of Apple’s customers is using a top of the range iPhone, even if dated a couple of years. That means that for every one of those sales, Apple is getting paid a premium, while Samsung sells lower end phones that do not garner the same profit per unit.

In the Apple versus Google battle, Apple is severely outnumbered by the amount of Android phones on the market, but Apple’s App store is doing much better. This is partly because it is aimed at premium consumers who will buy apps and partly because it doesn’t suffer from the same sideloading problems that Android does.

Google only made 550 million on its Android systems up to 2011. The figures on market share show Apple to be third and gaining while the figures on cash flow show Apple to be first and pulling ahead.

Apart from the Apple versus Android conflict there was more bad news for Windows and RIM phones at the bottom of the scale. RIM phones aren’t even close on the list of manufacturers, and they’re haemorrhaging in activations, shedding 3.2% in the last quarter.

That company doesn’t seem to have a way out, unless Blackberry 10 pulls through, and seems to be slowly fading away. Windows on the other hand will be expecting a massive rebound from these figures, which show it dropping 1.3% to 3.9%. That company has signed a new deal with Nokia that it hopes will make it a third player in the lucrative market.

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