Apple Inc. Ranked As Most Widely Used Smartphone In July

ComScore put the Apple Inc. AAPL iPhone at the top of the heap for July market share in a report issued Friday.

About 173 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones in July, representing a 71.8 percent penetration of the total mobile market.

The market researcher ComScore, in Reston, Va., said Apple lead the pack as a manufacturer with 42 percent of all U.S. smartphone subscribers in July, followed by Android-based Samsung with 28.4 percent. LG, Motorola Inc. MSI and HTC Corp. rounded out the list with each in the single-digit range.

Google Inc.'s GOOGL Android ranked as the top smartphone platform in July with 51.5 percent market share, followed by Apple with 42.4 percent, up 1 percentage point from April, Microsoft MSFT with 3.6 percent up 0.3 percentage points, BlackBerry BBRY with 2.3 percent and Symbian with 0.1 percent.

Facebook FB ranked as the top smartphone app in July, reaching 71.6 percent of the app audience, followed by Google's YouTube at 53.7 percent, Google Play reaching 51.7 percent and Google Search at 47.5 percent.