The numbers have been creeping up in the past year, now new data from comScore shows that Android handsets have surpassed Apple in US market share. Android has captured the second largest share of the smartphone operating system market.
In the three-month period from August to November, Android OS market share shot up 6.4 percent, placing it at 26 percent. In that same period, use of the Apple OS grew by 0.8, leaving it slightly behind at 25 percent.
Google’s Android captured the number two spot among smartphone platforms in November, behind RIM with 33.5 percent, down 4.1 percent in the period studied. Microsoft and Palm made slight losses, ranking fourth and fifth with with 9.0 percent and 3.9 percent respectively.
Samsung is still the top original equipment manufacturer with 24.5 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers, up 0.9 percentage points from the three month period ending in August. LG ranked second with 20.9 percent share, followed by Motorola (17.0 percent), RIM (8.8 percent) and Nokia (7.2 percent).
The bump in Android OS users comes at a time of growth in the the smartphone market. Some 61.5 million people in the U.S. now carry smartphones, that figure is up 10 percent from the preceding three-month period.
Interestingly, despite all the killer apps available for smartphones, text messaging remained the most used application. While 67 percent of smartphone owners sent text messages, just 35.3 percent used browsers on their phones, though the percentage increased slightly, up from 34.5 percent.
Source: comScore
