Apple and Samsung smartphone sales continue to push their US market share numbers north and their competitors out of the picture, a new study revealed today.
iPhone ownership reached 42% in the fourth quarter of 2013, according to an NPD Group study, giving Apple a 7% bump over last year's market share of 35%.
The iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C weren't the only key drivers behind this gain.
T-Mobile offering the iPhone last year played a significant role, an NPD Group spokesperson told TechRadar.
Meanwhile Samsung devices dominated the Android platform and increased their market share to 26% in the latest quarter. That's up 4% from 2012.
Combined, Apple and Samsung control 68% of the smartphone market, leaving little room for their competitors when attempting to appeal to the six in 10 people who now own a smartphone in the US.
Everyone else fights for scraps
There's more to these numbers than just Apple and Samsung, of course.
LG's smartphone market share rose 1%, tying it with Motorola at 8%. That's not good news for the Google-owned company and its Moto X, as it was previous sitting at 11%.
HTC is also down despite the HTC One smartphone garnered positive reviews all last year. It's lead among non-Samsung Android phones shrunk from 12% to 7%.
Least surprising of all, BlackBerry is in the red too. Previously at a 5% market share, it managed to dip even lower to just 2%. "Other" smartphone makers are lumped into the remaining figure of 7%
There's very little room for increased sales when Apple and Samsung are taking the largest slices of the market share pie, and that may not change considering the hype around the iPhone 6 and Galaxy S5.
