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Why Google is the Mobile Media Leader in America

comScore released data reporting key trends in the U.S. smartphone industry for August 2014. Apple ranked as the top smartphone manufacturer with 42 percent OEM market share, while Google Android led as the number one smartphone platform with 52 percent platform market share.

Once again, Facebook ranked as the top individual smartphone app. But the more important trend in America is that Google has achieved what no other company can claim -- a powerful mobile media cross-platform presence that extends their reach to just about every smartphone in the market.

According to the comScore assessment, four of the top five mobile apps in the U.S. market are from Google. Why is this important? In a saturated market, such as the American mobile phone marketplace, the big market opportunities are no longer in near-term smartphone device revenue attainment.

It's now more about the longer-term software app market development potential. And, increasingly, it's about the digital media content that ultimately flows through these pervasive apps. Therefore, the domination of American mobile media distribution is a significant accomplishment.

The key take-away: the U.S. traditional big media companies had conceded much of the desktop presence to Google, and now they've already relinquished the mobile channel leadership as well.

Smartphone OEM Market Share

174 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones (72 percent mobile market penetration) during the three months ending in August, up 3 percent since May.

Apple ranked as the top OEM with 42 percent of U.S. smartphone subscribers (up 0.1 percentage points from May).

Samsung ranked second with 28.9 percent market share (up 1.1 percentage points), followed by LG with 6.7 percent (up 0.2 percentage points), Motorola with 5.4 percent and HTC with 4.5 percent.

Smartphone Platform Market Share

Google Android ranked as the top smartphone platform in August with 52 percent market share.

Google was followed by Apple with 42 percent (up 0.1 percentage points from May), Microsoft with 3.5 percent (up 0.1 percentage points), BlackBerry with 2.3 percent and Symbian with 0.1 percent.


Top Smartphone Applications

Facebook ranked as the top smartphone app, reaching 72.4 percent of the app audience, followed by YouTube (54.9 percent), Google Play (51.2 percent) and Google Search (47.2 percent).

In addition, Facebook Messenger (45.2 percent) jumped from #10 to #6 in the ranking after Facebook disabled the messaging feature from its flagship app and transitioned users over to the standalone Messenger app.

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