Android Remains Leader on the US Market in Q3 2011, Nielsen Says

Google’s Android operating system is gaining more and more ground on the market in the United States, and the latest report from Nielsen on this shows that it is well in front of other mobile OSes out there.

The mobile platform is currently loaded on 42.8 percent of all smartphones in the United States market, well ahead of Apple’s iOS, which has 28.3 percent of the market.

In this number, the research firm includes the smartphone subscribers in the country, which represent almost 44 percent of all mobile phone users in the US.

“In the U.S., 71 percent of those with smartphones own either an Android device or an iPhone,” Nielsen notes in a blog post.

“But when it comes to smartphone apps, iPhones and Android smartphones are even more dominant: 83 percent of app downloaders, that is, those who downloaded an app in the past 30 days, use iPhone or Android smartphones.”

The research firm also notes that Research In Motion’s BlackBerry OS is currently on the third position on the market in the United States, with 17.8 percent market share, followed by Microsoft’s mobile OS, with a 6.1 percent share of the market (Windows Phone and Windows Mobile).

WebOS owns 2.2 percent of the smartphone market in the United States, while Nokia’s Symbian platform account for 1.7 percent of devices.

Nielsen also notes that Windows Phone accounts for 1.2 percent of smartphones in the United States, which does not seem that much, considering the fact that it has been available on devices for about a year.

The research firm notes that 56 percent of people who purchased a new handset in the past three months chose a smartphone, with Android devices leading in people’s preferences.

“Among those who purchased a new mobile phone in the last three months, 56 percent chose smartphones. Android remains the leading smartphone operating system while Apple is the leading smartphone manufacturer,” the research firm notes.