Samsung No. 1 Among U.S. Mobile Phone Makers, Apple No.6

The latest metrics on the U.S. mobile market from comScore, published Thursday, are about what you’d expect. Among mobile network operators, Verizon (VZ) ranked highest with 31.1 percent of the market during the three-month period ending March 2010. It was followed by AT&T (T) with 25.2 percent, Sprint Nextel (S) with 12 percent and T-Mobile with 5.1 percent.

Among mobile phone manufacturers, Samsung narrowly beat out Motorola (MOT) for the top spot with a fraction of a percent more than the 21.9 percent its rival claimed. LG Electronics ranked second with a 21.8 percent market share and Research in Motion (RIMM), and Nokia (NOK) ranked fourth and fifth with dueling 8.3 percent shares. (See tables below; click to enlarge.)

And where does Apple (AAPL) and its iPhone, which seems to have such broad mindshare these days, figure in the U.S. mobile OEM market? Andrew Lipsman, senior director of Industry Analysis at comScore (SCOR), tells me it ranks sixth with a five percent share. (Hear that Adobe?)

Clearly, Apple has some way to go before it cracks the Top 5, but the fact that the company has managed to claim so significant a share of the entire mobile phone market with a single smartphone that’s been available for less than three years is extraordinary.