Android market share exploding--iOS, BlackBerry eroding

Smartphone owners in the U.S. topped 53.4 million during the three-month period ending in July, up 11 percent over the corresponding April period, according to new data issued by digital measurement firm comScore. The big winner: Google's Android operating system, which increased 5.0 percentage points during over April 2010 and now represents 17.0 percent of the U.S. smartphone market. Android's gains came at the expense of Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) iOS and Research In Motion's (NASDAQ:RIMM) BlackBerry--while BlackBerry retains its overall lead, representing 39.3 percent of the U.S. smartphone market, that number slipped 1.8 percentage points from April's 41.1 percent share. As for iOS, it dropped 1.3 percentage points from 25.1 percent in April to 23.8 percent in July. Microsoft's Windows Mobile also continued to decline, falling from 14.0 percent in April to 11.8 percent in July--a 2.2 percentage point change. Palm remained unchanged at 4.9 percent. comScore adds that despite Android's market share gains, most smartphone platforms continued to add subscribers during the period.

With smartphone adoption growing, so too is mobile content usage. Sixty percent of U.S. subscribers sent a text message during the three-month period ending in July, up 1.4 percent over the previous period, and 33.6 percent access the mobile browser, a 2.5 percent increase. In addition, 21.8 percent of subscribers accessed a social networking site or blog (up 1.9 percent) and 14.5 percent listened to music on their phone (up 0.7 percent). As for mobile gaming, 22.3 percent of subscribers played a game during the period, down 0.1 percent compared to the previous period.

For more on the comScore report:
- read this release

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