RIM, Windows Continue To Lose Mobile Market Share, Android Near 53 Percent — comScore

Today comScore

reported August US mobile market share data. Consistent with the pattern of the last several months Samsung continued to lead other hardware makers, although Apple and HTC were the only OEMs to see growth. Among smartphone operating systems, iOS and Android grew while other platforms continued their slide.

Android has firmly established itself north of the 50 percent threshold  in the US among smartphone owners. The operating system now stands at 52.6 percent of all US smartphones. However the iPhone’s share jumped a meaningful 2.4 points — prior to the launch of the iPhone 5.

Apple’s share thus now stands at 34.3 percent, while Windows Phones still appear to not be attracting US buyers. Windows Phones’ share contracted to 3.6 percent. (These data obviously don’t reflect the impact of Windows 8, which hasn’t yet been released.) Meanwhile RIM continued its decline, although recent sales figures were better than expected.

ComScore says that 116.5 million people in the US now have smartphones. That represents 49.5 percent of the market. By contrast Nielsen has reported that 55 of mobile subscribers have smartphones. Nielsen further projects that smartphone penetration will reach 62 percent by Q4 of this year (though probably Q1 2013 is more likely).