The latest U.S. smartphone market rankings report from mobile comms metrics outfit comScore, Inc., covering September 2014, shows Android in the lead as the dominant smartphone platform “with 52.1 percent platform market share.” Apple, meanwhile, remained “the top smartphone manufacturer with 41.7 percent OEM market share.” This is off a base of 174 million people in the U.S. owning smartphones, or 72 percent total mobile market penetration, over the July-September 2014 period.
Android’s market share has if anything very slightly increased since comScore’s last set of numbers, from June 2014, rising 0.2 percent from 51.9 percent. it. Apple’s OEM market share meanwhile, is 0.4 percent down from 42.1 percent, while Samsung, the largest Android-based phone manufacturer, saw its U.S. market share rise from 28.6 percent to 29 percent.
comScore noted that overall growth in the U.S. smartphone market softened slightly to just a 1 percent rise in the period under review, attributing this to consumers waiting on the launch of the iPhone 6. If this interpretation is correct, the next series of numbers may show some interesting reflections of the actual level of response to Apple’s new device. For now at least, Android is still sitting pretty in the American market, but wait and see what the figures after the iPhone launch date of September 19th bring.
Where’s the profit in the Android ecosystem? Ay one point, I thought that Samsung was profiting but that seems to have declined significantly in recent months.
What is the point in having the greater market share if that doesn’t equate to profit?
That’s assuming that maximizing profit and minimizing loss are still the prime directive of business.