Apple Still Leads but Samsung Fast Catching Up in US

Washington, Feb 12 (IANS) Apple is still the leader in the US smartphone market but it needs to pull up all its socks as Samsung is fast catching up with its stunning range of Android-based devices, a new report has revealed.

According to US-based market research firm Parks Associates, Apple is still well in the lead compared to competing manufacturers, holding 40 percent of the smartphone market while Samsung holds around 31 percent of the market and LG is next in line with 10 percent.

Apple remains the dominant smartphone manufacturer in the US but Samsung is catching up," Harry Wang, director, health & mobile product research, said in a statement.

Manufacturers like Motorola and HTC have 4-5 percent of the market. The “other” category, which includes emerging manufacturers such as Huawei, OnePlus and others, makes up about the same amount of the market as LG, the firm noted, adding that android original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are gaining ground on the iPhone-making company.

However, the market share looks a lot different when we look at the numbers from around the globe.

Numbers of third quarter of 2015 from another research firm Strategy Analytics show Samsung leads globally with marketshare of 23.7 percent followed by Apple at 13.6 percent. This is followed by Chinese electronics company Huawei at 7.5 percent, Lenovo at 5.3 percent and Xiaomi at five percent.

Research from Parks Associates shows that the Android platform as a whole, which includes almost all manufacturers besides Apple, makes up around 60 percent of the pie.