Android passes RIM in U.S. as leading mobile OS
Google's Android scooped up 33 percent of all smartphone users in the U.S. during the first three months of the year, surpassing RIM as the leading smartphone platform, says ComScore.
Android continued its dominance of the smartphone landscape by shooting past BlackBerry maker RIM as the leading smartphone OS in the U.S., according to new data from ComScore.
Tracking the first quarter of 2011, ComScore ranked Android's U.S. market share at 34.7 percent, six percentage points higher than in the final quarter of 2010. In comparison, RIM's share fell to 27.1 percent, a 4.5 point drop from 31.6 percent in the previous quarter, putting the BlackBerry operating system in second place among the top five.
Eyeing the other players, Apple's iOS share inched up half a percentage point in the first quarter, while Microsoft's Windows Phone and HP's PalmOS both dropped about a percentage point. Overall, 72.5 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the first quarter, a gain of 15 percent from the previous quarter, ComScore said.
Looking at the actual mobile phone makers (both smartphones and features phones), Samsung was the top manufacturer in the first quarter, with 24.5 percent of all U.S. mobile customers. LG took second place with a 20.9 percent share, followed by Motorola with 15.8 percent.
In fourth place, RIM stayed relatively flat with an 8.4 percent share of the market. But Apple grabbed a 1.1 point gain to capture 7.9 percent of the market, thanks in part to the launch of the Verizon iPhone.
Peeking at what mobile subscribers are doing with their phones, ComScore found text messaging to be the top activity, done by 68.6 percent of users, up 2.2 points from the previous month. Other common activities included using mobile browsers, downloading apps, accessing social network sites, playing games, and listening to music.
To compile its data, ComScore surveyed more than 30,000 U.S. mobile subscribers through its MobiLens service.