Just a few weeks ago, we reported that Samsung and Apple were the only two smartphone manufacturers seeing growth in the United States, and that the pair were slowly eating away at their rivals’ market share. But when you take old-fashioned feature phones into account, the situation looks a little different.

New data from Counterpoint Research suggests that strong December sales have helped LG overtake Apple to claim the second-largest stake of the U.S. phone market. As you might expect, Samsung is still way ahead in first.

The upcoming HTC M7 has been pictured out in the wild ahead of its official unveiling. Not only are these the clearest shots of the device we’ve seen to date, but they also show off its new Sense 5.0 user interface, and a new button arrangement beneath the display. This isn’t believed to be a final version of the device, but it’s likely to be the closest we’ll get until its official unveiling.

Sony unveiled the Xperia Z, its latest flagship smartphone, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week, and the device has been very well received. It looks good, and it has some great specifications. But there was one thing we didn’t like. The device is set to launch with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean — not Android 4.2, the latest release, which offers features like Daydream and lock screen widgets.

Thankfully, Sony has now confirmed that the Xperia Z will get the Android 4.2 update “shortly after launch.”

Back in September, British carrier O2 teamed up with HTC and started an initiative to reduce the number of unwanted smartphone chargers in the United Kingdom. The carrier estimated that around 70% of handset buyers already had a charger that would be compatible with their new device, and so it started selling certain HTC devices without them.

O2 is now reporting that the initiative has been a big success. 82% of customers didn’t need to purchase a charger with their smartphone, the company claims, which surpasses its initial expectations for the effort.

HTC is set to announce a new flagship smartphone at Mobile World Congress next month, and recent rumors have revealed it’s set to be called the HTC M7. We already know a lot about its internal specifications, thank to previous leaks, but we had no idea what the handset would look like — until today.

Now we’re led to believe the device is going to look almost identical to the iPhone 5.