In another indication that T-Mobile's "uncarrier" marketing strategy is paying dividends, a new study by Counterpoint notes that T-Mobile has surpassed Sprint as "the third largest smartphone carrier in terms of smartphone volumes buyer closely behind AT&T." That includes all of Sprint's prepaid brands, including Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile.

The study offers an interesting look at the dissection of smartphone sales by carriers, noting that we're at the point where three out of every four smartphones sold have LTE support. As for brands, the dominance of Samsung and Apple likes comes as no surprise. A smattering of data points from the study:

• Samsung was the top handset supplier while Apple was the top smartphone supplier; Apple & Samsung together captured more than two-thirds of the smartphone market.

• TCL-Alcatel became the fourth largest handset supplier and fifth largest smartphone supplier in USA, maninly taking share away from Huawei.

• Android share rose to 59% of the total smartphone shipped during the quarter & Windows Phone grew to slightly under 4%.

• Apple & Samsung combined captured more than 70% of the LTE shipments

In terms of in-carrier share for the brands, Apple dominated the big two carriers capturing more than half of Verizon & AT&T’s smartphone shipments and more than a third of smartphone shipments at T-Mobile & Sprint respectively.

• Samsung was the top brand at T-Mobile and regional carriers while the next best performing brands were: Nokia (at AT&T), Alcatel (at T-Mobile), ZTE (at Sprint) & Motorola (at Verizon).