Smartphone market share: Google retains US smartphone app, operating system supremacy

Google has retained its position as the most dominant app and operating system vendor in the US, but Apple remains the most popular smartphone vendor, according to new comScore figures.

The figures show Google Android now holds 52.2% of the US smartphone market by total subscribers, ahead of Apple’s iOS on 40.6% of the market.

Interestingly, despite Windows Phone’s recent gains in some European markets, its market share at 3.2% remains behind BlackBerry, which claims 3.6% of the market.

However, Apple’s market share of 40.6% is enough to secure its place as the most popular smartphone maker by subscriber numbers, ahead of Samsung on 25.4%.

Google subsidiary Motorola claims a distant third spot with 7% of the market, narrowly ahead of HTC on 6.7% and LG on 6.6%.

The survey also reveals Google remains the most popular app property in the US, with 88% of all iOS or Android users either regularly viewing Google’s websites or having at least one of its apps installed on their phone.

The figure puts Google ahead of Facebook (84.4%), Yahoo! (77.9%), Amazon (65.3%), Apple (49.6%), AOL (49.5%), Pandora (48.1%), Microsoft (48.1%), and Turner Digital (38.7%).

However, the most commonly installed app is Facebook, installed on more than three-quarters (75.7%) of US smartphones.

This places it ahead of both Google Play (54%), Google Search (52,2%), Pandora Radio (48.2%), YouTube (48%), Gmail ($5.6%), Apple’s app suite (43.8%), Google Maps (43.1%), Yahoo! Stocks (29.9%) and Instagram (25.5%).