Apple increases share of U.S. smartphones to 42%

Only other manufacturer to compete is Samsung, with a 26% share

Android may eat Apple's lunch when it comes to world shipments, but in United States it is a totally different story. Over here, Apple is head and shoulders above all other manufacturers and, in fact, is only increasing its lead.

In the fourth quarter of 2013, overall smartphone penetration increased to 60%, up from 52% in Q4 2012. And the bigger winner during the quarter was Apple, which increased from 35% to 42% in the same time period, according to new data put out by NPD on Thursday. 

Samsung also saw an increase in ownership, increasing from 22% of smartphones to 26% this past quarter. When put together, Apple and Samsung now represent 68% of all the smartphones owned in the United States. 

The only other manufacturer to see an increase year to year was LG. As for the other manufacturers, HTC, Motorola, and Blackberry, they are all less popular than they were a year before.

Interestingly, there was no Nokia on this list. Windows Phones have becoming increasingly popular in recent quarters around the world, easily sliding into third place behind iOS and Android, with Nokia leading the pack.

In the third quarter of 2013, Windows Phone actually grew its worldwide shipments 156% year-to-year, going from 3.7 million to 9.5 million. Its market share also increased significantly, from 2% to 3.6%. The biggest beneficiary of this rise was Nokia, which accounted for 93.2% of all Windows Phone smartphones.

But apparently that has not translated to sales in the United States, or at least not yet. 

As you might expect, more cellphones means more data usage. It increased from 5.5 GB per month in Q4 2012 to 6.6 GB per month in Q4 2013, and was apparently driven mostly by music streaming.

The percent of smartphone owners that use an app to stream music increased from 41% to 52%, with music services such as Pandora and iHeart Radio leading the way. 

The U.S. remains a bit of an outlier when it comes to the Android vs iOS war.

For the first time ever, Android topped 80% in worldwide smartphone shipments in the third quarter of last year, with Samsung accounting for just under 40% of that market.

Apple's iOS, meanwhile, continued to fall. It saw 33.8 million shipments, good for 12.9% of the market.

Figures in the NDP report cam from its on-device meter "SmartMeter" from 4,500 smartphone users over three months. The data was collected between September and November 2013.

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