Much of the recent explosive growth of mobile lifestyle has been linked to new capabilities available on smartphones coupled with higher speed mobile data networks.

And now Smartphones have passed an important milestone: over the past few monts for the first time ever Smartphone purchases outnumbered feature phone purchases in the US market according to Nielsen’s latest survey of US mobile consumers.

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The survey found that 55% of consumers who bought a device in the last 3 months bought a Smartphone up from 34% a year ago. This number can be expected to go even higher as additional manufacturers bring out a wider range of lower cost smart phones.

Overall in the US market 38% of consumers now own a Smartphone.

Android remains the most popular operating system with 38% of Smartphone’s running on Android. However the survey found that during Q 1 and 2, Android has stabilized with around 27% of new devices running Android.

There was good news for Apple, as iPhone penetration increased from around 10% to 17% share of sales. On the other hand the news was not too positive for RIM, whose share of the market dropped from 11% down to 6%.

05.07.2011    Tags: Android, RIM, smartphones, USA