US: Android is the most popular smartphone system

US market researcher comScore reports that 69.5 million US citizens own a smartphone, and that one third of these phones run Google's open source Android mobile operating system. On the popularity scale, RIM and Apple are next with 29% and 25% of users, leaving Microsoft (8%) and Palm (3%) far behind. According to market researcher Nielsen, the US sales figures for Android phones have already been above those for RIM and Apple since July 2010, but this is the first time that Android is also leading in terms of devices in use. comScore said that last November, RIM was in the lead with 34%, followed by Android and Apple with an almost identical share each of 25% of users.

Apple's iOS and Android are predicted to gain market share, while the other platforms will reportedly lose it.
Source: ComScore Overall, comScore says that there are 234 million mobile phone users in the US. Reportedly, the top mobile OEM is Samsung (with a market share of 24.8% of all US mobiles) followed by LG (20.9%), Motorola (16.1%), RIM (8.6%) and Apple (7.5%). comScore obtained its figures from a survey of 30,000 mobile phone users in the US that the company carried out between December and February.

Recently, market researchers at IDC had predicted that Android will have a market share of 45% in 2015. Researchers at ABI Research arrive at a similar conclusion, although there is one difference: in 2016, ABI Research estimates that Samsung's proprietary Bada smartphone system will have a 10% market share, and Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 will only have a share of 7% – while IDC predicts that Microsoft will claim 21%, which would put it ahead of Apple, and that Bada's share will be less than 5%. For the big three, ABI's predicted figures are similar to those of IDC: Android 45%, Apple 19%, RIM 14%.

See also:

• Smartphones: Android overtakes Symbian, Apple loses market share, a report from The H.

(crve)