Smartphone Market Share: Devices Make Up Almost Half Of All Phones, With 2 Players Gunning For Top Spot

As of February 2012, nearly half (or about 49.7 percent) of U.S. mobile subscribers now own a smartphone, according to a new Nielsen report.

That's a 38 percent increase over last February, when only 36 percent of mobile subscribers owned smartphones.

Two companies are dominating the market -- and it's not Microsoft or BlackBerry-maker RIM, who formerly claimed large shares of the market. Nielsen revealed that the majority of U.S. smartphone subscribers (about 48 percent) are using Google's Android devices, while 32.1 percent are using Apple's iPhone. The rest of the market is made up of BlackBerry owners (11.6 percent) and users of "other" smartphones.

Nielsen's numbers align closely with similar research conducted by comScore and released on March 6.

According to comScore's study, which focused on "the U.S. mobile phone industry during the three month average period ending January 2012," the number of mobile subscribers owning smartphone devices passed the 100 million-mark back in January. Like Nielsen, comScore found that Android tops the list of popular smartphone platforms (48.6 percent of the market), with Apple (29.5 percent), BlackBerry (15.2 percent), and Windows Phone (4.4 percent) trailing behind.

While fewer smartphone owners use an iPhone than an Android phone, Nielsen's March 29 report shows Apple stands to catch up to Google -- 48 percent of recent acquirers surveyed in February bought an Android phone, while 43 percent purchased an iPhone.

Perhaps once the much-anticipated iPhone 5 is released, Apple will get a boost. In a report released back on January 18, Nielsen published the results of a survey of recent acquirers -- or owners who had purchased a smartphone in the previous three months -- conducted in December. They revealed that, following the October launch of the iPhone 4S, the number of recent acquirers who chose an iPhone jumped from 25.1 percent in October to 44.5 percent in December.

Check out graphs of Nielsen's findings here, then let us know: Do you own a smartphone, and, if so, which kind do you like best?

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Comments

[JenAshley]

07:00 PM on 03/31/2012

"Dumbphones?!" My LOL moment of the day.

[CamGun Maker]

05:45 AM on 03/31/2012

Devices make up half of phones? What does that mean? https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.CamGun

[Gravenstein]

09:47 AM on 03/31/2012

It means you're a lousy spammer.

[eric14]

04:58 PM on 03/30/2012

What percentage of these phones are bought pre-owned?

[larrykat]

03:30 PM on 03/30/2012

I wonder when kids will realize that the coolest phone is no phone at all.

[Ppenguinator]

05:56 PM on 03/30/2012

And why is that?

[Jason D Abides]

12:15 AM on 03/31/2012

Trying to coordinate anything with a so called "cool" (phoneless) person is very difficult. In fact it's a serious burden.

[NHBill]

03:24 PM on 03/30/2012

The real story about smartphones is just how much of the cream Apple owns.
They've skimmed off almost all of the profits.
So much so that Even "Google earns 80% of its mobile revenue from iOS, just 20% from Android!"

This sterling bit of journalism studied recent court testimony to discover just how dominate Apple is in smartphones despite have a slightly smaller marketshare than Android.

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/03/29/google_earns_80_of_its_mobile_revenue_from_ios_just_20_from_android.html

[cmacattack]

02:37 PM on 03/30/2012

Of course smartphones are taking over. Been in a cell phone store lately? It's all they push. I went in recently to get two non smartphones for my parents and the guy had to go in the back to find one. They wont push non-smartphones because the carriers make more money by charging a required data fee when buying a smartphone.

[Barbarian At The Gate]

08:34 PM on 03/30/2012

It's all about the Benjamins. They can charge more for the phone itself and sell the premium plans.

[Gravenstein]

09:49 AM on 03/31/2012

Y'mean they're in business to make money? Holy rip!

[Ratnok]

01:10 PM on 03/30/2012

" 2 Players gunning for top spot?"

Wow. HuffPost just can't bring itself to acknowledge that Android is #1, even though it has been for some time now- and by a significant margin.

[cmacattack]

02:35 PM on 03/30/2012

Android is the number one OS but it's not the number one phone, iPhone is still number one in that area. Android is on how many dozens of phones? While iOS is only on a few models being sold.

[Ratnok]

11:42 PM on 04/23/2012

That is the same tired argument that Apple fanboys used to try to explain away Microsoft's #1 position in personal computers back in the 80's. It was an absurd argument then, and an absurd argument now. According to you, Apple dominated Microsoft- and still does.

Nonsense.

[Cael]

10:35 AM on 03/30/2012

Question is, when will smartasses out number dumbasses

[rekindaguy]

12:48 PM on 03/30/2012

Excellent question! I believe that's scheduled for the 14th of Never.