Apple is still leading the U.S. smartphone market due to steady sales of the iPhone 6s, but rival Samsung is catching up. While Apple market share in the smartphone realm sits at 40 percent, Samsung holds 31 percent of the market, with LG coming in third at 10 percent.
9 To 5 Mac reports that other competitors, such as Motorola and HTC, hold between 4 and 5 percent of the market, which is respectable but nothing compared to Apple's market share.
An interesting fact is that the Android platform makes up 60 percent of the smartphone market, whereas Apple products, like the iPhone 6s running the iOS, make up 40 percent.
There's also a little information about the ever-changing trends with phone upgrades, according to the smartphone market report.
"Operators are pulling out all the tricks to encourage phone upgrades," Harry Wang said. "The once-familiar two-year contract, which tied consumers to a two-year phone upgrade cycle, is gradually fading. U.S. carriers started to do away with two-year contracts in 2012, and by the third quarter of 2015, only 51% of mobile consumers had a contract, down from almost 70% at the end 2011."
Apple iPhone sales weren't too shabby either, selling 74.8 million in the same period.
As far as iPhone sales go, Apple still trails Samsung by a little over $100 million. Samsung's global market share for the fourth quarter stood at 20.1 percent, while Apple's market share was 18.5 percent.
A year ago, Apple matched Samsung in smartphones shipped because of the popularity of their iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. The truth is that Samsung ships tons of different smartphone models, accounting for their domination at the worldwide smartphone market level.
When paired with the news of Tim Cook believing that iPhone sales will decline in March, the outlook doesn't look so great for Apple's market share.
Samsung's likely to continue pummeling Apple on the global stage and also continue to catch up to Apple in the United States.
[Photo by David Becker/Getty Images]
