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Rising Demand for Encrypted Mobile Communications

Now the U.S. smartphone market is saturated, quarter-to-quarter changes in market penetration are very small.  Reporting key trends in the U.S. smartphone industry for October 2015, comScore released data from their latest market study.

Apple ranked as the top smartphone manufacturer with 43.3 percent OEM market share, while Google Android led as the number one smartphone platform with 52.9 percent platform market share.

Once again, Facebook ranked as the top individual smartphone software application. Mobile communication apps will continue to be disruptive in the telecom sector -- in particular, market development for the encrypted open-source Signal app from Open Whisper Systems will be the one to watch in 2016.

Smartphone OEM Market Share

193.9 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones (77.9 percent mobile market penetration) during the three months ending in October -- that's half of one percent increase since the last quarter. Apple ranked as the top OEM with 43.3 percent of U.S. smartphone subscribers.

Samsung ranked second with 27.9 percent market share (up 0.6 percentage points from July), followed by LG with 9.8 percent (up 0.9 percentage points), Motorola with 5.1 percent (up 0.2 percentage points) and HTC with 3.3 percent.

Smartphone Platform Market Share

Android ranked as the top smartphone platform in October with 52.9 percent market share (up 1.5 percentage points from July), followed by Apple with 43.3 percent, Microsoft with 2.7 percent and BlackBerry with 1 percent.

Mobile operating system market share has evolved, and some are just no longer relevant within the U.S. market. Case in point, Symbian didn't register a meaningful market share in October and will be excluded in future ranking reports.

Top Smartphone Software Applications

Facebook ranked as the top smartphone app, reaching 77.3 percent of the app audience, followed by YouTube (61.2 percent), Facebook Messenger (60 percent) and Google Play (52.6 percent).

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