Report: Apple Now No. 2 Smartphone Maker in U.S.

ComScore’s October 2012 report on the smartphone market had one noticeable change from previous reports: Apple is now the second most popular smartphone manufacturer in the U.S. LG, the previous number two, sank to third; Samsung retained its dominance as number one.

According to the comScore press release, “For the three-month average period ending in October, device manufacturer Samsung ranked as the top OEM with 26.3 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers (up 0.7 percentage points). Apple ranked second for the first time on record with 17.8 percent market share (up 1.5 percentage points), followed by LG with 17.6 percent share, Motorola with 11 percent and HTC with 6 percent.”

Mashable’s Stan Schroeder noted, “On the smartphone front, both Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS experienced moderate growth — 1.4% and 0.9%, respectively. RIM, Microsoft and Symbian all lost market share, with RIM’s BlackBerry OS being the biggest loser: its market share dropped by 1.7%.”

FierceMobileContent’s Jason Ankeny added, “More than 121.3 million U.S. mobile subscribers now carry smartphones, increasing 6 percent since July, comScore reports. The firm notes that 75.9 percent of subscribers sent and received text messages in October, up 0.3 percentage points over July, and 54.5 percent accessed downloaded applications, an increase of 1.9 percentage points. In addition, 52.7 percent accessed their mobile browser, up 1.5 percentage points, and 39.4 percent accessed social networking sites or blogs, jumping 1.5 percent.”

Marketing Land’s Greg Sterling observed, “Android is increasingly synonymous with Samsung. Other than Apple all other handset makers (including Android handset makers) lost share. Google will need to develop some compelling new devices through Motorola if it hopes to maintain a healthy and diversified OEM ecosystem.”