Android Continues Surge, Browser and App Usage Up
According to the latest figures from comScore, there are 15 percent more smartphone users in the U.S. during the three months ending September compared to the three-month period ending June, and Google continues to gobble up market share.
During the three months ending September, 58.7 million U.S. consumers owned a smartphone, up 15 percent from the prior three-month period. RIM continues to hold its slimming lead with 37.3 percent of the market for the three months ending September, down 2.8 points from its 40.1 percent share in the previous period.
Apple’s share remained unchanged at 24.3 percent of the market.
Meanwhile, Google’s Android OS finished the period with 21.4 percent of the market, up 6.5 percentage points from 14.9 percent in the previous three-month period.
Microsoft was fourth with 10.0 percent of the smartphone market, down 2.8 points. Palm followed behind with 4.2 percent, up 0.5 points.
Samsung remained the top mobile original equipment manufacturer (OEM) with 23.5 percent of the market for the three months ending September, up 0.7 percentage points from the previous period.
LG followed with 21.1 percent of the market, down 0.1 points, while Motorola finished in third with 18.4 percent of the market, down 2.1 percentage points.
RIM held onto its fourth spot with 9.3 percent of the market, up 0.5 points, while Nokia finished in fifth with 7.4 percent of the market, down 0.7 points.
comScore notes that during the three-month period ending in September, 234 million Americans ages 13 and older used mobile devices.
Sending a text message to another mobile phone was the most popular form of mobile content usage, as 67.0 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers said they took part in that activity during the three months ending in September. This was up 1.4 percentage points from the previous three-month period ending in June.
Using a browser was second with 35.1 percent of the mobile audience, up 2.2 points, while using downloaded apps was third with 33.1 percent, up 2.5 points.
Accessing social networking sites or blogs (23.2 percent), playing games (23.1 percent) and listening to music on a mobile phone (15.2 percent) were also popular forms of mobile content usage during the three-month period ending in September.
comScore also released data showing that while 68 percent of smartphone subscribers are between 18-44, only 49 percent of total mobile subscribers fit into that age range, showing that smartphone subscribers are younger than their non-smartphone-owning counterparts.
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