LG picks up US smartphone crumbs, gains on Apple and Samsung

Apple and Samsung are still the category-killers in the US smartphone market, but LG has managed to peel a small sliver of market share from both in the September quarter. That's what emerges in data from Comscore, whose September 2015 numbers show that Apple and Samsung each shed 0.5 per cent US market share, picked up by LG …

[ecarlseen]

Eh, bad timing to be calling Apple trends

Everyone knows they pop out new phones in the fall, so there's typically a sales lull in August / September. The Q3 and Q4 year-on-year numbers should give a better indication of where things have gone.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Eh, bad timing to be calling Apple trends

Ssssh, don't question the Reg's anti-Apple articles. They are hoping for a drop in sales so they can start their "peak Apple" taglines again!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Eh, bad timing to be calling Apple trends

The article says Apple went up but flattened off. Seems an accurate description of the data.

[Paul Shirley]

Re: Everyone knows they pop out new phones in the fall

...but so does everyone else.

I'm looking forward to how much LG G4 prices get hit by the V10 launch, purchase permission already agreed with the wife - when the price falls enough ;)

[jason 7]

Re: Everyone knows they pop out new phones in the fall

I bought my G4 about two months ago for £360.00. I was waiting for other phones to appear but just gave up waiting...

I looked a few days ago and it had dropped to around £299 ish.

I love it. No issues with it. Though if you look on sites like XDA Developers you'd think any phone was plain terrible. I really don't know how/why those guys screw kit up so much. I wonder if any of them have a clue about how to use technology.

Stop playing with it and just use it FFS!

Oh and its pretty easy to remove or just disable 95% of the LG apps and services. No need to root or any of that stuff. LG Backup is about the only unwanted one I couldn't get rid of. A better situation than trying to clean up a Samsung of its bloat!

[thomas k]

I did my part :)

LG must be thrilled I upgraded my Tribute to a Tribute 2.

[Dave K]

Re: I did my part :)

Me too. Samsung ditched the removable battery and the SD card slot, so I ditched my ageing Galax S3 and bought an LG G4. Been very happy with it too! And surprise, surprise, Samsung's market share falls as LG's rises.

Samsung: Never underestimate the power of genuinely useful unique selling points. Think twice before you drop them and replace them with gimmicky USPs like curved-edge screens.

[dotdavid]

Re: I did my part :)

My Galaxy S3, the source of much of my constant irritation with Samsung, finally gave up the ghost and I got a discounted LG G3 to replace it. Very impressed, although the unremovable cruft like McAfee does annoy me. Still if it annoys me a lot at least I can put CyanogenMod on this phone as it uses a Snapdragon with source provided by Qualcomm rather than Samsung's Exynos chipset with no source available.

[Green Nigel 42]

Re: I did my part :)

When my Note 2 finally goes to silicon heaven, it will not be replaced by any of the current Samsung offerings due to:-

a) No SD slot.

b) No removable battery (opening up the S6 or Edge to replace battery requires a total strip down).

c) No water proofing.

d) Apparent lack of toughness, Metal/glass case is not as tough as a plastic one, making it too thin places more strain on the screen.

e) Bloat & ability to remove a significant amount.

At the moment I might look for a low used Note 4 (scores 3/5), a LG G4 (4/5) or one of the Sony handsets, (but really want a pablet.

Sorry Samsung, you should not have dropped the very features which made you attractive alternative to the iPhone or other Android competitors.

[Anonymous Coward]

Cruft on Apple Phones?

Some peope are already complaining that there is TOO MUCH stuff pre-installed on an iDevice by Apple.

Less room for all that other crapware you listed perhaps?

I don't know but in my (limited) experience with an HTC Android phone, the crap that was pre-installed and thus non-upgradable unless it was by HTC proved to be a really big negative in eyes.

The Facebook app in particular sucked so much battery and without jailbreaking the phone I couldn't switch it off.

However, this was just one of the many reasons the device went to re-cycling after 6 months and I reverted to a dumb phone.

[Charlie Clark]

The real news is…

… how little "reach" Twitter is getting because people find direct messaging more convenient! This is why investors are getting jittery and the recent round of pink slips. Oh how my heart doesn't bleed!

[ratfox]

How come Apple Maps is installed on only 29% of devices, when it is installed on 100% of the 43% of iPhones??

[Steve Davies 3]

Statistics, Statistics and...

well, you know the rest.

IMHO, these sites will do anything to 'embiggen' their page hits and thus their income.

[Dave 126]

@ratfox, that is a good point.

It turns out that the chart doesn't represent app 'installations', but actual 'useage' ofsaid app by users.

From the Comscore.com, the source that the Reg cited:

Using a combination of panel and census-based measurement methods, Mobile Metrix offers an unduplicated view of mobile browsing and app audiences at the media property, website and individual app level.

Whereas the Reg wrote:

Facebook and Apple dominate the non-Google apps installed on smartphones, as Comscore's table (below) shows.

That is not what what the table showed at all.

[Vector]

Dominating?

I'd like to know how 2 apps qualifies as "dominating." I guess statistically it means 100% more than the other non-Google/Facebook apps but it kinda reminds me of the old joke about a 2 person race:

"Our guy came in Second! Their guy, next to last!"

[coppice]

43% of new phone sales in the US were iPhones.

29% of devices in general carried Apple Maps.

[Tromos]

I wonder what the Facebook figure would be if it was possible to remove it in all cases. Seriously, why do some manufacturers embed apps in Android that can't be removed? It's not as if they can force you to set up an account and use them.

[Dave 126]

>I wonder what the Facebook figure would be if it was possible to remove it in all cases.

The figures would look much the same, because contrary to how the Reg presented it, the chart was compiled from app usage and not (pre)installations. This explains the anomaly that @ratfox spotted.

[si 4]

Surprised that Whatsapp isn't on the list yet stuff like Yahoo stocks is considering most the people in my phone book have whatsapp yet no one I know uses Yahoo stocks.

[Dave 126]

Indeed. I guess it depends on where in the world you are based... I'm in the UK (and What'sapp seems quite common), yet the original label to the chart, which The Reg didn't reproduce, is:

"Top 15 Smartphone Apps

September 2015

Total U.S. Smartphone Mobile Media Users, Age 18+ (iOS and Android Platforms)"

emphasis mine

[Charlie Clark]

I think the way the data is collected is dependent upon website visits: WhatsApp and the like don't generate traffic that comScore can measure. This should have Twitter even more worried.

[Anonymous Coward]

I use the twitter app on my mobile phone - does that generate website visit traffic?

[Kirstian K]

Ironically

I notice 2 missing apps:

Phone, Messaging

i guess my next purchase will be a smart tablet that also makes calls and does messages then,

instead of a smart phone as phone (or messaging) do not seem to be on the list of used app's..!

I am aware the figures are potentially correct (if data is actually collected on these apps, which i doubt it is), but most people i know do use phone/messaging less than apps most of the time.