Android regains top market share in the US

Android rules the roost on the global stage by a wide margin overall, but the market share in the United States is a tight competition with iOS.

iOS reached a peak sometime last year as both it, and Android dominated over a virtual vacuum due to lack of any viable third-player. Symbian still manages to move the needle on a global scale but does not even register an asterisk now. Windows Phone has been around but there has not been any excitement over it until Windows Phone 8 rolled out, and its growth rate has been phenomenal. BlackBerry, formerly known as Research in Motion, continued to take a beating although that was pre-official-BlackBerry 10 (and still is in the US actually). 

For the three month period ending in January, Kantar Worldpanel ComTech estimates that Apple’s iOS slipped from just above 50% market share to about 46% while Android gained to 49% from 43%.  Much of this growth can be credited to Sprint. Kantar cites Sprint’s contract pricing for Android devices averaged about $95. Even then, most of that money went to Samsung (no surprise there) since Sprint had lowered the price of a Galaxy S III to $99.

Verizon now leads in the percentage of smartphone sales, but its share of iOS versus Android activations remains a bit more balanced at 56% (iOS) to 40% (Android) compared to AT&T where a full 70% of its smartphone activations are iPhones. Despite the aggressive pricing strategy Sprint played, its growth was marginal and the carrier is still suffering a net-loss of subscribers.

Going forward it will be interesting to see how the progress of Android as well as any (hopeful) advancements in iOS will be reflected in how the two giants share the bulk of the market. Windows Phone needs to maintain its momentum and we will see if BlackBerry can get its mojo back. MWC has revealed to us the Firefox OS is coming to town too.