[NewsPoster]

Apple's share of the US mobile phone market has nearly doubled following the release of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 in October, a new study has revealed. The report, by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, finds that the iPhone went from 28 percent of the market in the July-to-September quarter to just over 50 percent in the final three months of the year, an improvement even over the same time the year before, when the iPhone 5s was released.

Apple's performance in activations of new phones -- a key real-world metric of actual sell-through rather than often-inflated shipment stats -- showed the company selling just less than double the number of phones Samsung sold, with LG coming in in third place with 11 percent of activations. No other company achieved even five percent marketshare, with BlackBerry coming in dead last at a statistical sub-one percent of phones activated during the three-month period.

The results mark the first time in recent years that Apple's iPhone sales have topped all rivals combined, though the company got close last year when iPhone 5c and 5s sales made up 48 percent of the market in the three months following the introduction. Samsung's sales in the holiday quarter dropped to 26 percent in 2014, versus the 31 percent share it had last Christmas. The analysis reported that "the Amazon Fire and Blackberry smartphones registered slight share, which we attribute to random sample fluctuation as much as actual sales," according to CIRP Co-founder Josh Lowitz.

"For most of the earlier quarter, buyers held off buying Apple phones in anticipation of the launch," he added, noting that Samsung's loss was split between Apple and LG, as the latter shaw its holiday quarter share increase to 11 percent from eight percent last year.

"By every measure, Apple's 2014 phone launch was a success," said Lowitz. "[The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus] drew from loyal Apple customers, with 86 percent of buyers upgrading from an older iPhone. Samsung and LG saw far lower loyalty rates, with 25 percent of Samsung owners and 18 percent of LG owners who activated a phone in the quarter switching to an iPhone."

[coffeetime]

I have iPhone 6. Once you get a taste of it, you would never want to go back to 5 and 4 ever again. Apple made the right move in making the screen bigger! Plus it actually fits in my pant pocket better than previous iPhones because it's supper flat.

[Charles Martin]

Clearly, Apple is doomed.

[pairof9s]

I'm with coffeetime...I'm thoroughly pleased with my iPhone 6. Indeed, I was one of those people begging to get the larger phone. I'm empathetic to those who still like the size of the 5/4 models, but for those of us who needed larger screens, icons, text, the iPhone 6 is just the answer. I also appreciate the subtle tweaks Apple made to the iOS to allow for the screen to drop down for easier one-hand selection and the zoomed interface for larger icons/text.

To be honest, I'm not sure what Apple could present in an iPhone 7 (6s) that could impress enough to upgrade, but this model is a no-brainer.