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.