Samsung still doMinates mobile phone market, but Apple is gaining

Samsung is still the biggest maker of mobile phones, but Apple is gaining ground, according to data released today by market researcher ComScore.

Samsung accounted for 25.6 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers for the three months ending November 11, a slight increase of 0.3 percent over the previous three months. While Apple came in fourth with 11.2 percent, its 1.4 percent increase was the greatest market share increase for the previous three months.

Samsung and Apple were the only mobile phone makers in the top 5 to boost their share of the market during that period. LG came in at No. 2 with 20.5 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers, a decrease of 0.5 percent, followed by Motorola, which lost 0.3 percent to finish the period with 13.7 percent of the market.

In the No. 5 spot, beleaguered handset maker Research In Motion logged the greatest percentage loss, dropping 0.6 percent to 6.5 percent.

Android, meanwhile, continues to dominate the mobile OS landscape. Apple's iOS also made headway, though not at Google's expense.

Google's mobile operating system controlled 46.9 percent of market, up 3.1 percent over the previous three months, while Apple's iOS came logged an increase of 1.4 percent to finish in second with 28.7 percent. The rest of the top 5 platforms all lost marketshare: RIM lost 3.1 percent to finish with 16.6 percent, Microsoft lost 0.5 percent to finish with 5.2 percent, and Symbian lost 0.3 percent to finish with 1.5 percent.

Today's data does not reflect the 700,000 new Android devices Google says it is activating on a daily basis, or the 4.2 million iOS devices and about 2.6 million Android devices activated on Christmas Day.