• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, April 4, 2014

In the U.S., the battle for market share between iOS and Android has reached a virtual standstill. The Google mobile platform ran on 52% of American’s smartphones, on average, for the three months ending in March, according to the latest figures from comScore. That’s roughly flat with Android’s share three months earlier.

Likewise, the iOS share in February remained unchanged from November, at 41%. Their combined 93% share continues to leave little room for anyone else. Microsoft, however, has gained ground steadily on BlackBerry and between November and February pushed ahead into the No. 3 spot behind, albeit way behind, the Big Two.

While BlackBerry slipped to 2.9% share from 3.5%, Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform increased to 3.4% from 3.1%. Research firm IDC has projected the Microsoft platform will see higher growth in global smartphone shipments than Android or iOS, increasing its market share worldwide to 3.9%.

When it comes to smartphone manufacturers, Apple maintained its healthy lead over Samsung, with just over 41% share and flat from the prior three months. Samsung, however, picked up a percentage point on the iPhone maker, ticking up to 27% share. Rounding out the top five were LG (6.8%), Motorola (6.3%) and HTC 5.4%).

In terms of usage, Google remained the top property across the mobile Web and apps in February, with 89% share of the mobile media audience. Yahoo and Facebook, though, are right on its heels, with 85.7% and 85% share respectively.

While Yahoo and Google are often neck-and-neck on the desktop, Facebook is a bit further back in traffic. But because of the social network’s relative strength on devices, it’s much closer to the other two in mobile reach. And with 75.7% reach just within apps, Facebook was again No. 1 in that category.

Google Play was runner-up in the app audience rankings, with 52.1% reach, followed by Google Search (49.8%), YouTube (48.4%), and Pandora (45%). Google overall had five of the 15 highest-ranked apps in reach, Facebook three (including Instagram and Facebook Messenger, and Yahoo a pair (Yahoo Stocks, Yahoo Weather).