Apple's iPhone took U.S. subscriber share from Android in the March quarter, according to new data from comScore. iPhone users accounted for 39 percent of smartphone subscribers during the period, up from 36.4 percent in the December quarter, as shown in the image below. Google's Android remained the top platform during the same period, but saw its share decline to 52 percent from 53.4 percent in the December quarter.
"136.7 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones (58 percent mobile market penetration) during the three months ending in March, up 9 percent since December," the company said in a statement.
Chart by The Mac Observer from comScore Data
The top (unreadable) category is a combination of Symbian and "Others"
That makes the iPhone the #2 platform, but Apple was the top vendor during the period, as shown in the image below. Samsung was the #2 vendor, with 21.7 percent of subscribers, up from 21 percent in the prior quarter. HTC, Motorola Mobility, and LG—3rd, 4th, and 5th—all lost subscriber share.
Chart by The Mac Observer from comScore Data
This is the part of the script where we point out that comScore's reports are not a measure of market share for new sales, but rather a measure of subscriber share. Media outlets far and wide misreport this data every time comScore issues a report.
The difference is that comScore's reports are a measure of smartphones in use in the wild, which is far removed from sales of new devices at the cash register. Apple's share gains are partly a demonstration of the fact that iPhones enjoy much longer useful life spans than competing devices, and this is particularly true when compared to cheap Android devices that represent a huge portion of Android shares.