It seems that many consumers think that Apple is beginning to lose its grip on the smartphone crown as rival manufacturers seemingly bring out more powerful devices with larger screens, but Apple is still reigning supreme in the US as Android slips.

According to some new data from comScore Apple has increased its lead over other handset manufacturers in the first part of this year, with Samsung also fairing well in the country. The top five handset manufacturers in the country see HTC coming in at number 3, followed by Motorola and LG.

With regards to smartphone platforms Google’s Android is still out in front ahead of iOS, but Apple’s ecosystem is gaining ground on its fierce rival, with Android actually slipping a bit. BlackBerry came in third with Windows Phone and Nokia’s Symbian rounding off the top five.

The research taken out was among over 30,000 mobile users that owned smartphones with estimates suggesting that 129.4 million people in the country now own such devices, which is up 7% since October.

Apple added an extra 3.5% market share since October compared to Samsungs 1.9% which must be largely down to the release of the iPhone 5, while HTC dropped 1.7%, Motorola 1.4%, and LG saw a 0.3% increase.

On the software side of things while Android is still out in front of iOS 52.3% compared to 37.8%, Android actually dropped 1.3%, which only BlackBerry at 1.9% saw a bigger fall. Windows Phone and Symbian both saw falls of 0.1% which is not good news for Microsoft considering this comes shortly after WP8 was launched, and BlackBerry should see things improve as BB10 comes to the US this month.

It is obvious away from Android and iOS rival platforms are fighting for the scraps of the smartphone market as combined they account for 90.1% of the smartphone market.

What platform does your smartphone run on?