Google is gobbling up a growing share of the smartphone operating system market, according to the latest report from ComScore. The market research firm says that for the three months ending in February, Google’s Android operating system had just over half the U.S. smartphone subscribers. That’s up from 47% during the previous three months.
The most popular Android phones in the United States were those made by Samsung, which had a 25.6% of the overall mobile phone market (smartphones and feature phones) during the three month period. Apple’s iPhone had 13.5% of the mobile phone market, up more than two percentage points from the previous three-month period. Rounding out the top five mobile phone original equipment manufacturers were LG (19.4%), Motorola (12.8%) and HTC (6.3%).
In the smartphone space, Apple has a 30.2% market share, up from 28.7% during the previous three months. Despite all the publicity surrounding Nokia’s new Windows phones, Microsoft saw its market share slip from 5.2% to 3.9%. But many analysts are expecting Windows phones to do well during the second half of 2012, and many carriers are hopeful that Windows phones can create some of the excitement the iPhone has generated, without the hefty subsidies.
“Microsoft has been the sleeping giant and has very deep pockets,” says Russ Lipinski of Associated Carrier Group. “If the viral success of the ‘My phone just got smoked by a windows phone‘ videos is any indication of what is possible, then I do think they may have all the right tools to help carriers bring a third OS back with considerable market share. In my opinion it will be a healthier ecosystem if there are three dominant OS’s in the USA versus two.”
