• by Gavin O'Malley , Staff Writer @mp_gavin, July 13, 2012

Fueling the wildfire that is the mobile Web, a clear majority of U.S. cellphone buyers are now taking smartphones over digitally challenged feature phones. Indeed, according to the latest figures from Nielsen, two-thirds of U.S. phone purchasers opted for smartphones in the second quarter of the year.
 
“That may not come as a surprise to the millions of existing smartphone owners, but it's still a significant milestone,” assures msnbc.com’s GabgetBox blog. “In 2009, smartphones only made up 18% of mobiles bought.”
 
“With less reliance upon voice as mobile apps and the web become more widely used, it’s safe to say we’re now witnessing the final death throes of feature phones,” writes GigaOm.
 
As for smartphone leaders, TechCrunch suggests: “There’s still plenty of room in the market for a third strong mobile ecosystem to emerge while Apple and Google continue to slug it out. The question though is what that third platform will be, and there are no clear indicators to be found in Nielsen’s data.”
 
As of the second quarter of the year, Android continues to leads the pack in terms of pure penetration, as it accounted for 52% of smartphones in use -- up from 50% in the first quarter. Meanwhile, Apple’s iOS accounted for 34% in the market, which isn’t too shabby considering that Android’s share spans multiple devices.
 
“If 66% of mobile phone buyers purchase smartphones, and 36.3% of them get the iPhone, then that means almost a quarter of all phones bought in the U.S. are iPhones,” 9to5Google calculates.
 
Meanwhile, despite a concerted effort to revive its brand, Nokia commanded a mere 0.3% of the U.S. market with its new devices -- a figure that works out to about 330,000 units. “That means that the Lumia 900 and the 710 have together sold just over a quarter million phones,” The Next Web notes. “That’s nothing to write home about.”