Android Ends 2013 As Top U.S. Smartphone Platform

Google’s Android platform ended 2013 where it was for much of the year -- with a slim majority share of the U.S. smartphone market. Android ran on 51.5% of Americans’ smartphones in December, virtually unchanged from the 51.8% share three months prior.

No. 2 Apple increased iOS’ smartphone share just 1.2 percentage points from September to 41.8% in December, with the rest of the field far behind the two mobile giants and slipping further back. Struggling BlackBerry claimed just 3.4% share among smartphone operating systems, with Microsoft (Windows Phone) at 3.1%, and Symbian, at just 0.2%. All stats are according to the latest mobile market data from comScore.

When it comes to smartphone manufacturers, Apple slightly strengthened its grip on the No. 1 spot, with its 1.2% uptick to 41.8%, while Samsung increased its share the same amount to 26.1%. Motorola and LG were neck-and-neck vying for the No. 3 ranking -- with 6.7% and 6.6% share, respectively -- while HTC rounded out the top five at 5.7% share, down from 7.1% in September.

Google and Facebook again dominated the charts in terms of reach on the mobile Web and apps. Google ranked as the top Web property on smartphones, with 88.3% share, followed closely by Facebook (86%) and Yahoo (82.4%). Just outside the top three, were Amazon (73.3%) and AOL, 57.1%).

Facebook was easily the top smartphone app in December, claiming 77.4% reach, with Google Play and Google Search reaching 53.9% and 49.7% of the app audience, respectively. Pandora was fourth, at 48.7%, with YouTube right on its heels, with 48.2%. With Google Maps and Gmail, Google boasted five of the top 15 apps, while Facebook had three including Instagram and Facebook Messenger.

Yahoo’s flagship app didn’t crack the top 15 apps, but Yahoo Stocks and Yahoo Weather made the list, thanks mainly to being default apps in iOS 7. With Facebook’s new Paper app being released today, the social network could have another contender for the app ranking. 

Overall, 156 million people, or 65.2% of the U.S. population, owned smartphones during the three months ending in December -- up 3.2 percentage points since September.

Next story loading loading..