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ComScore: Motorola, BlackBerry rule U.S. market
New figures from research firm comScore show Motorola and BlackBerry maker Research In Motion commanding the U.S. device market. According to the firm's January numbers, close to 23 percent of the 234 million Americans over the age of 13 who owned a cell phone carried a Motorola-branded device. As for smartphones, BlackBerry captured 43 percent of the 42.7 million people who owned smart gadgets.
ComScore derives its figures from monthly surveys of consumers, and its findings represent current phone ownership among the U.S. population.
Interestingly, new numbers from research and consulting firm Strategy Analytics paint a slightly different picture. Strategy Analytics showed Samsung as the most prolific cell phone maker in North American in 2009, with 26 percent of the market. LG came in second with 21 percent of the market, while Motorola followed up as No. 3 with 16 percent of the market (RIM was No. 4 with 12 percent of the market). Strategy Analytics' numbers tally shipment numbers rather than ownership numbers, which indicate Samsung could overtake Motorola in comScore's rankings as the Korean firm's devices make their way into consumers' hands.
Nokia, by far the world's largest handset maker, barely made a dent in the North American market; Strategy Analytics showed the firm with a 7 percent share in 2009.
Apart from its manufacturer rankings, comScore also offered January numbers for smartphone operating systems. While BlackBerry controlled close to half the market, Apple scored a solid No. 2 position with 25.1 percent of the U.S. smartphone playground. Microsoft pulled up third with 15.7 percent of the market, though the firm's share declined by 4 points from comScore's October 2009 figures. Google's Android platform enjoyed the most dramatic gains, with an increase from October to January of 4.3 points, to 7.1 percent.
For more:
- see this comScore release
Related Articles:
What were the top smartphone operating systems in October?
ComScore: RIM has weak handset presence, but is smartphone king
The global handset market in the fourth quarter of 2009
Comments
Posted by Randy Giusto | March 11, 2010 - 2:46pm
it's apples and oranges- installed base versus current shipment trends and two very different methodologies. And it's confusing to readers that don't realize that, but for those in the industry that understand the difference between all the reporting firms, they get it. I think the story just confuses the average reader.
And comScore's numbers should not be thought of as "market share" but rather ownership share based on a monthly survey that is statistically represented among the US population- with some degree of variance (depending on sample size and survey bias).
Posted by crazy handset | March 11, 2010 - 8:51pm
I indeed confused by the different data. And I still don't understand what does the owership share mean.
http://www.sourcinggate.com/mobile-phone-c-4.html
Posted by Anonymous | March 14, 2010 - 5:36pm
It is indeed confusing, inexcusably so, that the author of this article apparently doesn't understand or can't communicate the difference between "what people used in 2009" and "what people bought in 2009".
Must be why I don't read this source much.
Posted by Mike Dano | March 15, 2010 - 2:43pm
Hello! I'm very sorry that the article is not clear enough. Let me try to explain: Strategy Analytics measures the number of phones that a vendor like Samsung ships during a given period. People who then buy those phones might trade them in for other phones, or sell them, or get rid of them or whatever. Meanwhile, comScore measures the phones that people are actually carrying around with them at a specific point in time. It's the difference between how many phones vendors made and shipped in 2009 (Strategy Analytics) versus which phones people reported owning via a survey completed in January (comScore). I hope that makes sense. --Mike Dano
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