Android continues march of progress

Google's OS market share gains while Apple stagnates

Google’s Android OS continues its steady climb to the top, jostling Apple and RIM out of its way, according to data released Wednesday by comScore.  According to the report, Google’s Android now takes 21.4% of the smartphone platform market, compared to 19.6% in August, and 13.0% in May.  The Android platform now reaches one in five U.S. smartphone subscribers.

ComScore’s report compiles three months’ worth of data, starting in June 2010 and ending in September.  During that time, Android’s market share grew 6.5 percentage points while the market shares of all of the other operating systems ranked in the report declined.  While Apple’s iOS did not decline, it experienced no growth between June and September, maintaining its 24.3% share of the market.

While RIM maintains its position at the top, the Blackberry maker is losing its footing, dropping to 37.3% in September from 40.1% in June.  Microsoft also continues to decline in the market, dropping to 10.0% from 12.8% in June, but this may flip on its head when Microsoft releases its new Windows Phone 7 OS to the U.S. next week.

On Monday, U.K. market research firm Canalys published a report showing that shipments of Android devices to the U.S. were nearly double those of Apple’s iPhone.  Of the 20.9 million smartphones shipped to the U.S. in the third quarter of 2010, 9.1 million, or 44%, were Android devices while 5.5 million, or 26%, were iPhones.

Last month, Nielsen reported that Android has become the number one platform among new subscribers who have purchased a smartphone within the past 6 months.   Furthermore, Nielsen reported that Android doubled its market share between February and August 2010.

ComScore reports that the overall market continues to grow.  58.7 million people owned smartphones in the period stretching from June to September, which is up 15% from the preceding three-month period. 

Additionally, 234 million people over the age of 13 owned mobile devices in the three month period ending in September, and Samsung took the lead among handset manufacturers with 23.5% of the market, up 0.7 percentage points from June.  LG came in second with 21.1% of the market, followed by Motorola with 18.4%.  While RIM lost ground in the smartphone market, it gained in the mobile device market, taking 9.3% of the market, which is up from 8.8% in June.

And what are people doing with their mobile devices?  67% are text messaging, 35.1% are using the Web browser (up 2.2 percentage points from June), 33.1% are using downloaded apps (up 2.5 percentage points), and 23.2% are accessing social networking sites and blogs (up 1.8 points).

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