• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, March 9, 2011

Coverage of the latest comScore mobile data released yesterday naturally focused on Android surging past BlackBerry to become the most popular smartphone platform in the U.S., with 31.2% market share as of January.

But the research also showed Microsoft continues to lose ground in the smartphone market despite the launch of Windows Phone 7 in October. For the three months through January, the Windows Phone share fell 1.7 percentage points, from 9.7% to 8%. That's also down slightly from its 8.4% share in December.

True, it's still early days for Windows Phone 7, and Android didn't explode out of the blocks when it was launched in 2007, either. But Google also didn't have anything like the multimillion-dollar marketing push behind its mobile operating system that Microsoft did for Windows Phone 7. So Microsoft can't be too pleased to see Android is still eating its lunch when it comes to the smartphone market.

No wonder the software giant paid Nokia more than $1 billion for the strategic alliance the two companies formed last month, according to a Monday Bloomberg report. The article indicated Microsoft's payments to Nokia would cover promotion and development costs for Windows Phone 7 devices. Though Nokia will pay Microsoft a fee for each WP7-powered device it sells, those costs will be offset by cutting R&D costs.

At least in the U.S., the Nokia partnership in the near term won't help Microsoft gain much share, since the handset maker has hardly any presence here in the smartphone category. But if Windows Phone 7 can't make inroads on Android and Apple's iOS through its other carrier and manufacturer deals, then the Nokia alliance alone won't propel Microsoft back into the race. It could be the No. 3 challenger to Google and Apple that Nokia CEO Stephen Elop has talked about -- but a distant third at best.