Apple the only mobile phone OEM to show U.S. subscriber growth in past three months
Apple"s iPhone garnered 10.2% of the U.S. mobile market making it the only top-5 OEM to show subscriber growth in the past three months.The average number of U.S. mobile subscribers using iPhones in between August and September, 2011 increased 1.3 percent to give Apple a 10.2 percent share of the market, making it the only handset maker to show growth since June, according to research firm comScore.
The research firm"s MobiLens study, which surveyed over 30,000 U.S. mobile subscribers age 13 and older during the three month period ending in September, shows that an average of 234 million Americans used mobile devices with 87.4 million using smartphones.
According to the survey, U.S. leader and worldwide number two Samsung was the only other handset maker that didn"t lose subscribers during the three month period, holding its 25.3 percent share with zero percent change. LG and Motorola both showed a .7 percent decrease in subscribers, followed by RIM losing .8 percent of the market.
Apple"s subscriber growth comes with an overall average increase in use of data-centric mobile features found on smartphones. The share of mobile subscribers using mobile web browsers increased 2.8 percent to 42.9 percent, and users of downloaded apps jumped 3 points to 42.5 percent. Text messaging remained dominant with 71.1 percent of the market using the feature, up 1.5 percent from June.