While tablets might be dipping in terms of sales, the phablet market is growing, with reports suggesting that 21 percent of all smartphone sales are phablets.
This is almost quadruple the amount, with phablet sales only accounting for 6 percent of smartphones that they were selling at this time last year.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Apple iPhone 6 Plus was the crowd favorite among phablets, taking a whopping 44 percent of all phablet sales in the U.S. during the last quarter.
Also unsurprisingly, display size was the top reason for users purchasing a phablet over a regular smartphone: 43 percent of iOS users and 47 percent of Android users cited screen size as the deciding factor.
Apple launched the iPhone 6 Plus last October in an attempt to capitalize on the growing phablet market. Along with the iPhone 6, the new releases catapulted Apple into being the top seller of smartphones in the world, before losing the position to Samsung once again last quarter.
Apple's iPhone took the lead at three of the big four carriers in the U.S., accounting for 59 percent of sales at AT&T; 43 percent at Verizon; and 50 percent at Sprint. Samsung, however, took the lead at T-Mobile, accounting for 42 percent of smartphone sales.
Despite Apple's success, Android is still the most used mobile operating system in the U.S., holding 58.1 percent of the market in the U.S. Among Android phones, LG grew the most, from 7.4 percent of Android devices last year to 10.8 percent this year.
Apple's iOS and Google's Android are not the only mobile operating systems, however. Microsoft also has one, and in case you've never heard of it (likely...) it's called Windows Phone. While Microsoft sales did not do well compared to the likes of Apple and Google, they did do better than they have in the past.
"Windows' U.S. market share has grown little during the past year," said Carolina Milanesi, chief of research at Kantar. "Digging a little deeper, it's easy to see the strong value proposition that the Lumia portfolio offers, as Windows phone sales in the U.S. skew towards the pre-pay market (20 percent) and installment plans (51 percent)."
While Android phones are still at the top of the market, there are some signs that its dominance might shift. Apple's market share grew 1.8 percent over the last year, and while that might not sound like much, it's not insignificant.
