ComScore: Android surges to 23.5% of U.S. smartphone market

Google's (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android mobile operating system now represents 23.5 percent of the U.S. smartphone market as of October 2010, drawing close to rival Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) iOS at 24.6 percent, according to research firm comScore. Android made up 17 percent of U.S. smartphones in July 2010, while iOS accounted for 23.8 percent. Research In Motion's (NASDAQ:RIMM) BlackBerry plunged from 39.3 percent in July to 35.8 percent in October, comScore notes--Microsoft's (NASDAQ:MSFT) Windows Mobile dropped from 11.8 percent to 9.7 percent, and Palm slipped from 4.9 percent to 3.9 percent. Close to 61 million U.S. subscribers now own smartphones, up 14 percent over the preceding three-month period and representing one out of every four American subscribers in all.

As smartphone penetration increases, mobile data usage continues to grow as well, with comScore reporting that 68.1 percent of U.S. subscribers sent text messages in October, up from 66.0 percent in July. Mobile web access also increased from 33.6 percent of users to 36.2 percent, while 33.7 percent of subscribers used downloaded apps, up from 31.4 percent in July. Mobile social networking use grew from 21.8 percent to 24.2 percent, mobile gaming increased from 22.3 percent to 23.7 percent, and 15.4 percent of subscribers listened to mobile music, up from 14.5 percent.

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