By looking at the latest U.S. smartphone market share numbers posted by Parks Associates, Apple is still in the lead with about 40% of the smartphone market share.
The report shows how major smartphone makers stand in today’s market, where it’s not surprising to see Apple in the lead. On the other hand, the figures show that Android OEMs are still very popular, where Samsung holds around 31% of the smartphone market share. LG is on the second place with 10%.
[quote]“Apple remains the dominant smartphone manufacturer in the U.S., but Samsung is catching up,” said Harry Wang, Director, Health & Mobile Product Research, Parks Associates.[/quote]
In the United States, Samsung is the one that could possibly threaten Apple. LG is one-third the size of the Korean smartphone maker, while manufacturers like Motorola and HTC sit around at 4-5% of the smartphone market share. The “other” category includes manufacturers like Huawei, OnePlus, and others – which make up the same amount of the market as LG.
Interestingly, the report also mentions a major shift in how people are upgrading their phones as well as how carriers are moving away from two-year contracts.
“Operators are pulling out all the tricks to encourage phone upgrades,” Wang said. “The once-familiar two-year contract, which tied consumers to a two-year phone upgrade cycle, is gradually fading. U.S. carriers started to do away with two-year contracts in 2012, and by the third quarter of 2015, only 51% of mobile consumers had a contract, down from almost 70% at the end 2011.”
When it comes to the whole world, Samsung is in the lead with market share at 23.7%, while Apple takes the second spot at 13.6%. This is followed by Huawei, Lenovo, and Xiaomi.
