The positions of Apple and Samsung in the mobile market are followed closely be many people, plenty of whom are enthusiasts of either the iOS or the Android platform. Today we have some news from the latest ComScore survey of more than 30,000 U.S. mobile subscribers as it seems Apple has moved into the second top spot of mobile OEM’s although the company still trails behind Samsung in top place.

In the three months ending October this year Samsung’s share of mobile subscribers had risen by 0.7 points to 26.3% as opposed to 25.6% for the three months ending July 2012. Apple’s share had also risen over the same timeframe by 1.5 points to 17.8% instead of 16.3%. Apple overtook LG from last time, pushing LG into third spot, Motorola came fourth and HTC made up the top five OEM’s but it’s significant that these companies all lost market share. LG was down by 0.8 points, Motorola by 0.2 points and HTC by 0.4 points.

Although the iPhone 5 obviously helped push up Apple’s figures we should point out that it was only released in the latter part of the quarter ending in October so this was a strong gain. As far as operating platforms go it’s a similar story with Google (Android) top, up 1.4 points to 53.6% share at the end of the three months to October 2012. Apple (iOS) took second spot with a gain of 0.9 points to a 34.3% share so Google is pulling ahead at a faster rate than Apple.

RIM, Microsoft and Symbian were third, fourth and fifth respectively, all looking woeful and all losing from their share of the market. RIM was down 1.7 points, Microsoft 0.4 points and Symbian 0.2 points with all three making up only 11.6% of the market. Considering the way Microsoft is currently promoting its Windows Phone OS and devices running it, this is a very disappointing result for the company. Although RIM is also down the company is looking to the release of the new BlackBerry 10 OS next year to revive its fortunes.

ComScore also reported that there are now 121.3 million US smartphone owners, accounting for 51.9% of the total mobile market. Between July and October that’s a rise of 6%. It’s always interesting to see the latest comScore figures although nothing here is very surprising and it seems likely that in future months we could see Samsung and Apple both gaining more ground against their major rivals.

Let us know what you think of these survey results. Do you think that BlackBerry 10 could turn around RIM’s current predicament? If Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform hasn’t managed to set the world alight maybe it will be a similar story for RIM and BlackBerry 10? Can you ever foresee a time when Apple will push Samsung out of the top spot for OEM’s? Send us your comments on this.