Although you wouldn’t think it after reading some gloomy recent analyst assessments, Apple (AAPL) is still a pretty popular company. And the latest numbers from comScore show that the launch of the iPhone 5 has helped Apple’s iOS gain some ground on Google’s (GOOG) rival Android operating system. According to comScore, iOS took a 37.8% market share in January 2013, an increase of 3.5 percentage points from its 34.3% market share in October 2012. Android, meanwhile, saw its market share dip slightly from 53.6% in October 2012 to 52.3% in January 2013, while BlackBerry’s market share continued its pre-BlackBerry 10 tumble from 7.8% in October 2012 to 5.9% in January 2013.
The most surprising movement — or lack of movement, to be more accurate — came from Microsoft (MSFT), which saw the market share of its Windows Phone operating system remain almost completely stagnant from October through January, accounting for just 3.1% of U.S. smartphones at the start of 2013. This actually represents a tiny decline from its 3.2% market share in October and is fairly astounding given that Microsoft has been making a big marketing push for Windows Phone devices after the launch of Windows Phone 8 this past fall.
