14 DAY TRIAL // The mobile operating system battle for supremacy is heating up even more on the market in the United States, with Android nearing fast the iOS on mobile subscribers share, the latest report from comScore shows.
While a recent survey from Nielsen showed that Android is closing in on iOS in users' preferences, data from the comScore MobiLens service unveiled the fact that Google's platform is about one percentage point away from becoming the second mobile platform in the market.
According to the report, although Research In Motion's BlackBerry operating system remains a leader on the US market, with 35.8 percent market share at the end of the three months period ended October 2010, Apple's iOS might not be able to maintain its second position for long.
The iOS enjoys 24.6 percent share of the mobile operating system (OS) platform market in the US, up only 0.8 percentage points from the previous month, while Google's Android operating system accounts for 23.5 percent of smartphone subscribers, up 6.5 percentage points.
Microsoft's mobile operating system ended the period with a market share of 9.7 percent, while Palm managed to account for 3.9 percent of smartphone subscribers.
Interestingly enough, although Android managed to Steam market share from rival operating systems, all of them gained subscribers in the three months period, as the overall smartphone segment continues to expand.
According to the comScore report, at the end of the said three months period, a number of 60.7 million people in the U.S. owned a smartphone, up 14 percent from the previous three month period. Overall, 234 million people ages 13 and older used a mobile device in the time frame.
When it comes to the device maker with the largest market share in the US, comScore put Samsung on the first position, with 24.2 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers, followed by LG with 21.0 percent share.
The third place went to Motorola, with 17.7 percent share. RIM came in fourth with 9.3 percent share, up 0.3 percentage points, while Nokia ended the time frame the fifth, with 7.1 percent share.
The comScore report also shows that text messaging is becoming more popular on mobile devices, with 68.1 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers using it in the time frame. 36.2 percent of all users fired up mobile browsers on their devices.
“Subscribers who used downloaded applications comprised 33.7 percent of the mobile audience, representing an increase of 2.3 percentage points,” ComScore states.
“Accessing of social networking sites or blogs increased 2.4 percentage points, representing 24.2 percent of mobile subscribers. Playing games represented 23.7 percent of the mobile audience (up 1.4 percentage points), while listening to music increased 0.9 percentage points, representing 15.4 percent of subscribers.”