ComScore: As ‘dumbphones’ fade away, Apple is now the #2 phone manufacturer in the US

We’re talking phones here, not just smartphones.

According to the latest comScore MobileLens numbers, Apple passed LG this month to become the second-biggest handset vendor by units sold in the United States (revenues and profits probably tell a much brighter story).

For the three-month average period ending in October, device manufacturer Samsung ranked as the top OEM with 26.3 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers (up 0.7 percentage points). Apple ranked second for the first time on record with 17.8 percent market share (up 1.5 percentage points), followed by LG with 17.6 percent share, Motorola with 11 percent and HTC with 6 percent.

The climb in rankings was of course helped by the release of the iPhone 5 but also the overall migration trend away from ‘dumbphones’, which LG, Samsung, Motorola and others have a vested interest in. Samsung also gained for the period—helped by sales of its popular Note 2 and Galaxy S3 smartphones

As far as mobile operating systems, Google and Apple both continue to pull away from the pack (below) with both vendors gaining at the expense of RIM, Microsoft, and others.