Samsung, LG, Motorola Top U.S. Device Share, comScore Reports

Whatever else you might say about developments in the smart phone market, it has to be noted that Android has succeeded in the marketplace, perhaps beyond what its detractors had hoped for. As recently as August 2010 you could still find some people suggesting Android would not threaten Research in Motion, for example. See http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08/25/android_to_conquer_all_not/. Before that, people were arguing that little of the actual cost of a smart phone is driven by the cost of an OS license, so Android would not get much traction. Before that, some were arguing that mobile operating systems were more complicated than they seemed, and that Google would struggle to get it right.

In less than a year, those predictions seem to be catastrophically wrong, for RIM. And though the conventional wisdom now is that Apple and Android are the top-two smart phone operating systems to contend with, the conventional wisdom seems to be right. All of a sudden, it seems an arguable point that RIM and Nokia might not make it. Given RIM's historic dominance of the enterprise, and Nokia's prominence globally, both might have seemed unthinkable just a couple years ago.

Though some of us spend more time tracking smart phone developments than feature phones, Samsung had 24.5 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers in the three months ending in April 2011, says comScore. Samsung is followed by LG with 20.9 percent share and Motorola with 15.6 percent share.

Apple jumped to the fourth position with 8.3 percent share of mobile subscribers (up 1.3 percentage points), while RIM rounded out the top five with 8.2 percent share.

Google Android ranked as the top operating system with 36.4 percent of U.S. smartphone subscribers, up 5.2 percentage points. Apple also gained share, capturing the number-two position with 26 percent of the smartphone market. RIM ranked third with 25.7 percent share, followed by Microsoft (6.7 percent) and Palm (2.6 percent).

Considering that only 32 percent of U.S. subscribers appear to own a smart phone, it is perhaps significant that 39 percent of all phone owners say they use browsers, while 38 percent download apps. About 28 percent use mobile social networking or check out blogs from their mobiles, while 26 percent play games on their devices.

Mobile Content Usage 3 Month Avg. Ending Apr. 2011 vs. 3 Month Avg. Ending Jan. 2011 Total U.S. Mobile Subscribers Ages 13+ Source: comScore MobiLens
	Share (%) of Mobile Subscribers
	Jan-11	Apr-11	Point Change
Total Mobile Subscribers	100.0%	100.0%	N/A
Sent text message to another phone	68.1%	68.8%	0.7
Used browser	37.0%	39.1%	2.1
Used downloaded apps	35.4%	37.8%	2.4
Accessed social networking site or blog	25.3%	28.0%	2.7
Played Games	23.7%	26.2%	2.5
Listened to music on mobile phone	16.5%	18.0%	1.5

comScore Reports April 2011 U.S. Mobile Subscriber Market Share - comScore, Inc