Apple Gains Share In Slow-Growing Smarphone Market

Apple AAPL gained the most U.S. smartphone market share in the second quarter, making strides against category leader Google, said market research firm comScore on Wednesday in a report to clients. There are now 110 million U.S. residents using smartphones, up 4% last year, based on the latest comScore data. Nearly half of the 234 million mobile device users in the U.S. now have a smartphone. Only a 4% growth rate, however, is among the slowest recorded to-date in the U.S. That may suggest that most U.S. consumers who want a smartphone now have one. It may also reflect economic worries holding back purchasing decisions. In either case, there is now a premium on smartphone market share gains in future quarters, and on new smartphone product releases, the biggest by far being Apple's planned iPhone 5. >a http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-30/apple-said-to-prepare-iphone-redesign-for-sept-12-introduction.html >Bloomberg News< /a> reported Tuesday that Apple is slated to release the product on Sept. 12. The latest from the Wall Street Journal's >a http://allthingsd.com/20110801/new-iphone-in-october-not-september> All Things D says that those reports are wrong, however, and that the device will make its market debut in October. Apple trails only the Google Android platform in the overall U.S. smartphone market. Google GOOG kept its lead with 51.6% of the market, up 0.6 basis points from the previous quarter. Apple improved its share 1.7 points to 32.4%. The comScore data jibes with research from Strategy Analytics earlier this week that suggested the iPhone gained at Android' expense. The Strategy Analytics analysts said that Android may be hitting peak share. Research in Motion RIMM continued to lag Google and Apple with 10.7% of the overall smartphone market, down from 12.3% in the first quarter. Microsoft MSFT and Symbian rounded out the top five, with 3.8 and 0.9% of the overall market respectively; both posted slight share losses since the March period. Google, Samsung and Apple continued to dominate the overall mobile phone market, collectively controlling about half the U.S. market. Samsung stayed No. 1 with 25.6% of all mobile subscribers, and LG Electronics garnered 18.8%. Both lost overall mobile share to Apple, with 15.4% of the total market, up 1.4 basis points from the previous quarter.