Racing ahead: Apple extends lead over Samsung in US

The gap between Apple and Samsung in the United States has continued to widen according to the latest figures from The NPD Group.

Published as part of its Connected Home Report, NPD reports that - as of Q4 2013 - Apple now commands 42 percent of the US smartphone market while Samsung holds only 26 percent.

During this same quarter last year, Apple held 35 percent of the smartphone market while Samsung held 22 percent. So, while both firms saw growth in the market - likely due to BlackBerry's floundering - the distance between Apple and Samsung is growing.

This report is more bad news for the Seoul-based Samsung, which is also struggling with diminishing profit margins on its smartphones.

The NPD Group also found that smartphone penetration is on the rise in the United States, accounting for an even 60 percent of all cellular phones in the wild.

This figure is up 52 percent from Q4 2012, despite the shrinking market shares for Motorola, HTC, and BlackBerry.

Fittingly, smartphone data usage has also increased from 5.5 GB per month in Q4 2013 to 6.6 GB per month in Q4 2013.

NPD drew its figures from a surveyed sample of 5,000 US consumers age 18 and older.

[source: The NPD Group]