U.S. Smartphone Market Share Numbers for Q1 2014

Yesterday, Nielsen released its first quarter 2014 smartphone market share numbers for the United States, including numbers for the leading smartphone OS options and the leading device manufacturers.

Nielsen's order of companies in the Q1 2014 report changed slightly since early-to-mid 2013. In the OS category, Android still leads the pack with 52 percent of the overall U.S. market, according to Nielsen. Apple's iOS is relatively close behind with 42 percent; Windows Phone has 3 percent of the market; BlackBerry represents 2 percent; and the "Other" category makes up the remaining 1 percent.

The Nielsen numbers from Q2 2013 looked like this: Android had 52 percent of the market (no change); iOS had 40 percent (two percent less than Q1 2104); BlackBerry had 3 percent (1 percent more than Q1 2014); Windows Phone had 2 percent (1 percent less than Q1 2014); and the remaining 2 percent of the market fell in the Other category.

So the most notable changes were a 2 percent growth in share by iOS and the transfer of 1 percent of the market from BlackBerry to Windows Phone.

Nielsen also released Q1 2014 U.S. smartphone market share numbers based on manufacturers. Apple led the pack with 42.5 percent of the market; Samsung has 29 percent (28.7 percent Android and 0.3 percent Windows Phone); LG has 7 percent; Motorola 6.8 percent; HTC 6.1 percent (5.7 percent Android and 0.4 percent Windows Phone); BlackBerry has 2 percent; Nokia 2 percent; and "Others" make up the remaining 3.4 percent of the market, according to Nielsen.

In Q2 2013, Apple had 40 percent of the market; Samsung had 24.7 percent (24 percent Android and 0.7 percent Windows Phone); HTC had 9.4 percent (9 percent Android and 0.4 percent Windows Phone); Motorola 9 percent; LG 7 percent; RIM/BlackBerry 3 percent; "Others" 2 percent; Nokia 1.2 percent; and Huawei had 1 percent of the market, according to Nielsen.

The most notable changes in the period were a decrease of 2.5 percent manufacturer market share by Apple; an increase of 4.3 percent by Samsung; LG and Motorola overtook HTC as the number three and four U.S. smartphone makers, bumping HTC into the fifth position; and Huawei, the number three global smartphone maker, according to IDC, lost much of the little U.S. share it had in 2013.