HTC Won’t Sell The Entry-Level Windows Phone 8S Smartphone In The U.S.

The HTC 8S is a Windows Phone 8 handset that’s lightly specced compared to its more powerful sibling, the HTC 8X. The 8X is HTC’s flagship phone based on Microsoft’s mobile OS, and apparently the only one the U.S. market may ever see, according to an official statement from HTC issued late Friday afternoon. The budget 8S won’t make it to U.S. shores, an HTC official told Engadget, which shouldn’t come as much of a surprise.

The HTC 8S is a not a bad-looking piece of hardware, based on the versions I saw at CTIA MobileCon before they were allowed to be displayed running a live version of Windows Phone 8. But inside it’s a device built for a budget: It lacks a front-facing camera, has a much lower resolution display, a weaker rear camera, less RAM and a slower processor than its big brother. The Verge reports that delays in carrier testing of the 8S had already pushed back its retail availability (where it was targeted for T-Mobile), but the new statement from HTC indicates we probably won’t ever see the phone on sale stateside.

The Windows Phone 8X is now said to be HTC’s area of focus on the Windows Phone side for the U.S. market, where it’s sold at AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless. While Windows Phone 8 sales are said to be exceeding the launch performance of Windows Phone 7 devices, no one’s putting any firm numbers behind that as of yet. It’s possible that what HTC saw regarding sales of its 8X indicated that the wise course would be to focus on promoting a single WP8-based device in the U.S. market, rather than splitting their focus between two handsets.

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Apple Gains On Samsung In U.S. Mobile Phone Market Share, Lands Second Overall For The First Time

For the first time in the history of comScore’s MobiLens U.S. mobile market share report, Apple has come in second overall among handset OEMs. Apple grew its U.S. market share by 1.5 percentage points from 16.3 to 17.8 percent in the three-month period ending October 2012, according to the report. During the same period, Samsung also saw its share grow, but only by 0.7 percentage points, from 25.6 to 26.3 percent. Apple seems to have begun narrowing the gap on the back of the iPhone 5, which went on sale in the U.S. towards the middle of the period covered by comScore’s latest report.

Screen Shot 2012-12-01 at 8.34.07 AMApple climbed to second over LG, which saw a dip of 0.8 percentage points from 18.4 to 17.6 percent during the period. Motorola and HTC rounded out the top five, both experiencing slight drops and finishing the quarter with 11 and 6 percent of the market, respectively. Another key metric comScore found, and one which helps explain what finally pushed Apple into second place, is nearly 52 percent of all subscribers in the U.S. were on smartphones, up 6 percent from the previous quarter. Apple only sells smartphones, so its fortunes rising in lockstep with the decreasing popularity of feature phones makes perfect sense.

As mentioned, Apple also released the iPhone 5 during the quarter covered by this report. We’ve already seen from Kantar Worldpanel that the iPhone 5 propelled Apple back to the top of the U.S. smartphone charts, and it’s likely that device is also the reason Apple now comes in at number two overall among handset makers of all stripes.

Platform market share still shows Google with a commanding lead, and one which grew during the period, from 52.2 percent of subscribers to 53.6 percent. Apple also gained, rising 0.9 percentage points from 33.4 percent to 34.3 percent, while RIM was the biggest loser among the top five with a decline of 1.7 percentage points. Microsoft and Symbian round out the top five, both with minor drops in overall share.

The next quarter will be an interesting one to watch for. It covers November through January, which means that we’ll see the holiday effect on all OEMs. It also should include LG’s sales of the Nexus 4 device, which seems to be remarkably popular, or at least in very short supply. Depending on how LG allocates supply among its Optimus G and Nexus devices, we could see it claw back into second, since the gap is still quite narrow, but it has to contend with Apple’s holiday iPhone sales, which are generally very strong.

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