Thursday, 6 Octorber 2011

Google's Android and Apple's iOS extended their dominance over the U.S. smartphone market in August 2011 and now account for a combined 71 percent market share, research firm comScore reports. Android ended the month with a 43.7 percent market share, up 5.6 percentage points since May 2011--iOS was the only other mobile platform to exhibit growth during the period, increasing 0.7 percentage points over May to capture 27.3 percent of the U.S. smartphone segment.

Smartphone ownership in the U.S. now exceeds 84.5 million, up 10 percent over the previous three-month period. Research In Motion's BlackBerry continues its freefall, sliding another 5.0 percentage points between May and August to make up 19.7 percent of the market. Microsoft's Windows Phone platform fell from 5.8 percent in May to 5.7 percent in August, and Symbian slipped from 2.1 percent to 1.8 percent.

Mobile data usage continues to grow, with 70.5 percent of all U.S. mobile subscribers sending text messages during the three-month period ending in August, up from 69.5 percent at the end of May. In addition, 41.6 percent of subscribers used downloaded apps (up from 38.6 percent), 28.5 percent played mobile games (up from 26.9 percent) and 30.9 percent accessed social networking sites or blogs (up from 28.6 percent).