• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, October 5, 2011

Android maintained a sizeable lead over its rivals for the three months ending in August, with a 43.7% share of the U.S. smartphone market, according to new comScore data.

That level represents a 5.6 percentage point gain from the previous three-month period. By contrast, Research in Motion's BlackBerry platform saw its share fall from 24.7% to 19.7% during the summer months as the once leading smartphone player in the U.S. continued to struggle against Google and Apple.

Apple's share increased almost one percentage point to 27.3%, second only to Android. Rounding out the top five were Microsoft's Windows Phone 7, with 5.7% share, roughly flat from May, and Symbian, down 0.3 points to 1.8%.

Among the top handset makers, there was little change up or down as of August. Samsung led the way, with 25.3% share followed by LG (21%), Motorola (14%), Apple (9.8%), and RIM (7.1%). The biggest shifts were Motorola's share dropping a point, and Apple's gaining a point.

When it comes to mobile content, the biggest change was in the proportion of mobile subscribers using downloaded apps, which increased 3 points to 41.6%. Text messaging remained by far the most pervasive mobile data activity, engaged in by 70% of the U.S. mobile population aged 13 and over.

The number of people using smartphones increased 10% from June to August to 84.5 million. That amounts to about 36% of all U.S. mobile users.