ComScore

iPhone 5 matches monthlong sales figures for 4S in just 3 days

More data rolling in attests to a blockbuster start for Apple's iPhone 5. The latest evidence: A new report from ComScore, which finds that the first three days of iPhone 5 preorders equaled the earlier Apple record set by the iPhone 4S over the course of a month.

Everybody's got a pet explanation for why the iPhone 5 is selling like hotcakes, and ComScore's boils down to this:

There are more people in the market for a smartphone than ever before. There's also a "substantial group" of holdouts who waited for the iPhone 5. … Read more

The 404 1,124: Where techies never say die (podcast)

Leaked from today's 404 show:

- Nokia's Lumia 920 packed with cutting-edge features.

- CNET Update: Nokia Lumia shows off new camera tricks.

- Wirelessly charge your new Nokia phone via Qi technology.

- Eurocom launching mobile phone approved by rabbis.

- Is this the death of voice mail?

- E-mail will never die: The man who invented it reveals why.… Read more

ComScore: Smartphones now more desirable, attainable in U.S.

The number of U.S. mobile phone subscribers switching from feature phones to smartphones is almost at the halfway mark, according to a new report from ComScore.

Roughly 110 million Americans owned a smartphone device as of April 2012, an increase of 44 percent from the previous year. Specifically, 47.5 percent of feature phone owners switched to a smartphone when buying a new device in April -- up from 38 percent at the same time in 2011.

At the same time, the number of American consumers who upgraded from an old feature phone to a feature phone decreased from … Read more

Samsung tops Apple in mobile survey of U.S. subscribers

April means lots of new first-quarter market share numbers. And research firms are stepping over each other to show that Samsung is faring well vis-a-vis its nemesis Apple -- which isn't doing too badly itself.

ComScore said today that Samsung is the top handset supplier among the 30,000 mobile subscribers surveyed in the U.S., with a 26 percent share in the three-month period ending in March. (see chart below).

In that period, 234 million Americans age 13 and older used mobile devices, according to ComScore.

LG was No. 2 with 19.3 percent and Apple third with … Read more

ComScore: Google still top site, Pinterest continues to soar

ComScore just released February data on most-visited Web sites that confirmed Google still rules the Web, with186.6 million visitors.

The next biggest properties were Microsoft Sites with 174.4 million and Yahoo sites with 173.5 million. Facebook, meantime, came in at number four with 158.6 million visitors, and, curiously, MySpace jumped 8 positions to rank number 42 with 25.5 million visitors.

Remember: This is strictly visitors, not a measure of how long people spend on these sites.

Yet one standout from the report is Pinterest, the invitation-only site that at the end of least year ranked … Read more

U.S. online spending hit $50 billion last quarter

The holiday season triggered a healthy surge in online spending, according to stats released yesterday by ComScore.

For 2011's final quarter, online spending in the United States hit $49.7 billion, a 14 percent jump from a year ago. That marked the ninth quarter in a row of positive year-over-year growth and the fifth consecutive quarter of double-digit gains.

Ten individual days out of the quarter saw more than $1 billion in online spending. Cyber Monday, November 28, was on top, with $1.25 billion. Monday, December 5, came in second, with $1.18 billion in spending. And Green … Read more

Apple's smartphone share rises, but Android still on top

Apple and Android both grabbed a bigger piece of the pie last quarter, but Google's mobile OS kept the top spot with almost half of all U.S. smartphone customers.

For the quarter, Android's market share rose to 47.3 percent, according to ComScore, up from 44.8 in the prior quarter. Apple also watched its share rise to 29.6 percent from 27.4 percent but remained in second place by a wide margin.

Apple enjoyed a huge gain in smartphone sales during the holiday quarter, selling a record 37 million handsets. But Android continued its onslaught … Read more

Bing surpasses Yahoo in searches for first time ever

Microsoft has finally won second place among search engines.

Carving out 15.1 percent of the market in December, Bing narrowly outstripped the 14.5 percent share eked out by Yahoo, according to data released yesterday by market researcher ComScore.

Of course, Google still led the search engine market with a whopping 65 percent share.

But December was the first month in which Microsoft outshone its competitor and partner Yahoo, according to a Citi analyst cited by TechCrunch. As always, ComScore's numbers include only explicit core searches that people manually enter on a Web page.

Under the hood, Microsoft … Read more

U.S. online holiday spending hits $35.3 billion

U.S. consumers spent a total of $35.3 billion online this holiday season, hitting a record for holiday sales, ComScore said today.

The 56-day holiday shopping period from November 1 to December 26 marked a 15 percent jump in spending over last year's season. The week ending December 25 alone saw $2.8 billion in online sales, a rise of 16 percent compared with the same week last year.

And the spending spree continued on into Christmas Day.

On December 25 there was a surge in sales of digital content and subscriptions, an area that includes downloads of … Read more