NPD: Apple grabbed 42% of US smartphone share in Q4 2013, Samsung took 26%, as HTC, Motorola, and BlackBerry fell
In Q4 2013, Apple and Samsung were the clear winners in the US smartphone race. iPhone ownership increased from 35 percent in Q4 2012 to 42 percent in Q4 2013 …
Context & Ripple Effects
NPD's Q4 2013 numbers land a month after comScore put Apple at 40.6% and Samsung at 25.4% of installed US smartphones, and they tell the same story from the sales side: Apple jumped from 35% to 42% of units year over year, with Samsung holding second at 26%. The two trackers now agree that the US market has settled into a two-horse race.
The pickup was broad — Fortune, NYT Bits, the Los Angeles Times and VentureBeat all ran the same NPD readout on January 16 — because it extends a pattern visible since comScore's March 2013 report flagged Android losing share for the first time: gains flow to Apple and Samsung specifically, not to Android generally.
First-order effects
- HTC, Motorola, and BlackBerry all ceded US share in Q4 2013 to Apple and Samsung per NPD, leaving each fighting for the shrinking remainder rather than for leadership.
- Apple enters 2014 with its strongest measured position in this dataset — 42% unit share versus Samsung's 26% — strengthening its hand with US carriers on inventory and placement.
Second-order effects
- Carriers and retailers allocate shelf space and subsidy dollars toward the two brands moving volume, squeezing HTC, Motorola, and BlackBerry out of the promotional slots that drive upgrade-season sales.
- Samsung faces pressure to differentiate against Apple at the top of the market rather than against other Android makers, since the mid-tier rivals it once displaced no longer set the competitive agenda.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the US smartphone market structurally becomes a two-vendor premium market with everyone else competing for scraps — a trajectory consistent with BlackBerry's continued slide across both NPD and comScore readings through 2013.
The trend: The US smartphone market is consolidating into an Apple-Samsung duopoly, with second-tier Android vendors and BlackBerry absorbing the losses quarter after quarter.