Android still dominates U.S. smartphone market

Android continues to dominate the U.S. smartphone market, according to data released today by market researcher ComScore.

Google's mobile operating system captured 50.8 percent of the market for the three months ending in April, a 2.2 percent increase over the three months ending in January. Meanwhile, Apple's iOS accounted for 31.4 percent of the market in April, a 1.9 percent increase over January.

The gains by Android and iOS were made on the back of Research In Motion's struggling BlackBerry OS, which lost 3.6 percent of its market share to finish April with 11.6 of the market. Microsoft's Windows Phone (4 percent) and the Symbian (1.3 percent) operating systems also lost market share over that period, with 0.4 percent and 0.2 percent, respectively.

Between January and April, smartphone ownership in the U.S. increased 6 percent to 107 million people.

Although Apple gained popularity among U.S. subscribers, little else changed in the overall rankings of mobile handset makers. Samsung continued to be the handset maker with the largest number of subscribers using its phones, accounting for 25.9 percent of the market in April, a slight increase of 0.5 percent, followed by LG, which captured 19.2 percent, a slight decrease of 0.5 percent. In third place was Apple (14.4 percent, up 1.6 percent), followed by Motorola (12.5 percent, down 0.7 percent) and HTC (6 percent, down 0.4 percent).

ComScore also found that 74.1 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers used text-messaging features on their handsets in the three months ending in April, while 50.2 percent downloaded apps to their devices. Some 36 percent used their mobile devices to access social networks or blogs, while 33.1 percent played games on their phones.

ComScore surveyed more 30,000 U.S. mobile subscribers to arrive at its findings.