Android Continues Taking Blackberry Share
Google Android continued its trend of luring US smartphone subscribers from RIM Blackberry in March 2011, according to comScore MobiLens data. Blackberry retained its number two position.Android Gains, Blackberry Loses Share
Android gained about 21% marketshare from December 2010, rising from 28.7% to 34.7%. Meanwhile, Blackberry lost about 14%, dropping from 31.6% to 27.1%.
The other three platforms on the top five list held their positions from December 2010, with Apple slightly gaining share and Microsoft and Palm slightly losing share. MobiLens data indicates 72.5 million people in the US owned smartphones during the three months ending in March 2011, up 15 percent from the preceding three-month period.
Music Listening Most Increased Mobile Activity
In March, 68.6% of US mobile subscribers used text messaging on their mobile device, roughly flat with 68% in December and making it the most common mobile activity. While listening to music was the least commonly performed activity of the six tracked by comScore, performed by 17.9% of subscribers, it had the highest growth rate, rising about 14% from 15.7% participation in December.In addition, browsers were used by 38.6% of subscribers (up 6%), while downloaded applications were used by 37.3% (up 8%). Accessing of social networking sites or blogs increased 10.5%, representing 27.3% of mobile subscribers, and playing games comprised 25.7% of the mobile audience, up 10%.
Samsung Stays on Top of OEMs
For the three-month average period ending in March, 234 million Americans ages 13 and older used mobile devices. Device manufacturer Samsung ranked as the top OEM with 24.5% of U.S. mobile subscribers. LG ranked second with 20.9% share, followed by Motorola (15.8%) and RIM (8.4%). Apple continued to gain share following the launch of the Verizon iPhone, up 16% to reach 7.9% of subscribers.Google Growth Strong Since Jan.
Google’s share of the US smartphone market (primarily representing the Android platform) climbed 27% between the three months ending November 2010 and three months ending February 2011, according to previous comScore MobiLens data. Google increased its smartphone platform share in that time period from 26% to 33%.
Google gained most of its smartphone platform marketshare at the expense of RIM, which lost almost 14% of its share between November 2010 and February 2011, dropping from 33.5% to 28.9%. RIM maintained a narrowing lead over number three Apple. There were no other significant changes in marketshare among the other three smartphone platforms in the top five.
However, Google built on a trend begun in January 2011, when for the first time it displaced RIM, claiming the top spot with a 31.2% share, up almost 33% from 23.5% in October 2010. Meanwhile, RIM lost 15% of its US smartphone platform share in the same time period, dropping from 35.8% to 30.4%. The other leading US smartphone platform provider, Apple, remained almost flat in percentage by going from 24.6% to 24.7% market share. However, this incremental increase was not enough to keep Apple from dropping from second to third place.
