iPhone 5 pushes Apple to become world's second-largest LTE device maker, Samsung's lead narrows

Samsung retains its leading positions as LTE vendor, but for the first time around Apple has emerged as a strong runner-up, eating up nearly 11% of Samsung’s share in the third quarter of the year. Despite only having the iPhone 5 for a short while, Apple grabbed a confident 26.7% of the market, according to researchers from Strategy Analytics.

Samsung on the other hand slipped from a commanding 50.9% share of the LTE market, to 40% in Q3 2012.

4G LTE adoption has really sped up in the United States, with all three major carriers rolling out and expanding their networks across the nation. Japan and Korea also have a quickly developing 4G market, but apart from these three, there are little other markets where LTE is widely deployed.

When it comes to the actual devices, the Samsung Galaxy S III and the iPhone 5 have been the two most influential LTE smartphones.

LG which held strong positions also slipped after the iPhone 5 launch to 9.1% market share, down from 15%.

Overall, Strategy Analytics predicts that by the end of the year there will be around 50 million LTE subscribers across the globe, a big boom over the 9 million active at the end of 2011.