• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, July 25, 2012

People buying smartphones for the first time are overwhelmingly opting for Android devices over iPhones, according to a comScore study. The research showed that among U.S. feature phone owners upgrading to a smartphone in April, 61% are buying Android devices and 25% are buying an iPhone. Another 7% are choosing a Windows Phone device, and nearly 5% a BlackBerry phone.

Android’s dominance extends to existing smartphone owners getting new smartphones. More than half (54.2%) chose an Android-powered phone compared to 33.5% getting an iPhone. Almost 10% in this category bought a BlackBerry phone, and 3% a Windows Phone device.

Apple Tuesday announced selling 26 million iPhones in the quarter ending June 30, a 28% increase from a year ago but down from the 35 million sold in the prior quarter in 2012. The dropoff may in part reflect consumers holding off buying a new phone until the expected release of the latest iPhone model this fall.

Underscoring the strong demand for Android phones, Samsung earlier this week said sales of the Galaxy S III had surpassed 10 million units since going on sale in Europe in late May and in the U.S. in late June and early July. That puts the flagship Android phone on pace to easily outstrip the 30 million Galaxy S II devices for all of 2011.

Separate comScore data earlier this month showed Android was the top smartphone platform in the U.S., with the Google operating system running on more than half (51%) of smartphones, as of May. Apple’s iOS was a distant second, at almost 32%.

The new comScore report highlighted the quickening adoption of smartphones overall, with almost half (47.5%) of feature phone users switching to smartphones in April, up from 38% a year ago. Conversely, the percentage of people getting another feature phone has dropped about 10 percentage points to 50.7%.

The digital measurement firm predicts smartphone owners will become the majority of mobile users within the year, opening up more opportunities for mobile marketers. Previous data from comScore has shown smartphone users are much more likely than those with regular mobile phones to interact with mobile content.