Apple Continued To Lose U.S. Marketshare Despite Spike From iPhone 4 Sales

Apple’s iPhone 4 did not give the company the bump in sales it needed to put Android’s momentum in check. Instead, Apple’s smartphone marketshare in the U.S. dropped by 1.3 percent in the three months ended in July while Android’s share grew by an impressive five percentage points, reports ComScore.

Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) had been losing marketshare all year, but that was expected to change with the release of the iPhone 4. For the past few years, consumers have held off on buying a new iPhone at the beginning of the year, knowing that Apple historically releases a new device during the summer. The leak reported by Gizmodo only compounded the problem.

However, the late-June iPhone release was not what it cracked up to be. For the second straight comScore (NSDQ: SCOR) report, Android continued to gain marketshare while all other major platforms lost it. To be sure, things could still change over the next three months as the iPhone 4 is in market for longer and Apple’s antenna issues get further behind them, but right now, it doesn’t seem like Apple’s got anything good enough to slow down Android.

Here’s how marketshare has changed for the top smartphone platforms in the July vs. April period:

The issue of marketshare or install base is one that is increasingly worrisome to analysts. In a research note released this morning by Bernstein Research analysts Toni Sacconagh and Pierre Ferragu, this is exactly their point of contention. Barron’s reports that the analysts strongly believe that if Apple expects to ward off Android, they need to add versions of the phone for the large carriers that don’t currently sell it.

Interestingly, it’s not because Android is more widely available. In fact, Android is only available on 59 carriers vs. 154 for iPhone, but the issue is that Apple lacks deals with some of the world’s largest wireless carriers—Verizon Wireless (VZ, VOD), Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) Germany, NTT DoCoMo (NYSE: DCM) and China Mobile.

The analysts suspect that Android’s install base could outnumber iPhone’s in as few as five quarters. According to comScore, Google (NSDQ: GOOG) still has a ways to go to topple both Apple and RIM (NSDQ: RIMM) in the U.S. RIM was the leading mobile smartphone platform in the U.S. with 39.3 percent share of U.S. smartphone subscribers, followed by Apple with 23.8 percent share, and Google’s share jumped to 17 percent.

One trend that has stayed constant over the past two comScore reports: While all the major smartphone platforms lost share to Android, most continue to gain overall subscribers as Americans increasingly buy smartphones. While that’s good news, in the past seven months, Android has painfully taken share away from all the other major players. Since December, RIM’s share has dropped 2.3 percent and Apple’s by 1.5 percent—Android has grown by an astonishing 12.2 percent.