According to the latest data from ComScore, Apple is still way ahead of Samsung in the U.S. smartphone market. Apple had 39% of the market in the first quarter of this year, while Samsung had just 21.7%. Apple has actually experienced a rise in marketshare of 3%, suggesting that the company is back on track after some analysts expressed doubt over their capabilities for future growth.
What’s caused this growth? Many analysts believe this is due to the release dates of the smartphones. The iPhone 5 came out in late 2012 and some industry insiders claim that Apple experienced higher sales for the first quarter of 2013 because of this.
Samsung’s flagship, the Galaxy S3, is getting a bit older and the S4 was just recently released. So Samsung wasn't really expected to have higher sales in the first quarter of 2013, especially since the S4 didn't have a full launch in Q1 2013. And consumers weren't looking to purchase more S3s because they new the S4 was coming out.
I expect that these numbers will fall in the second quarter of 2013 because of all the new flagship smartphones. The Galaxy S4 and the HTC One look like they’ll be huge releases for Android. Android smartphones have definitely caught up to the iPhone now, and so it will take a lot more work from Apple to maintain any sort of lead over the other manufacturers.
