comScore: Android And RIM Smartphone Share Heading In Opposite Directions

Jul 5, 2011 at 7:54pm ET by Greg Sterling

ComScore came out with May mobile data for the US market this afternoon. The story line is largely the same as we’ve been hearing for the past several months. Android is up, everyone else is down and the iPhone is holding or slightly growing in its second place position. (However total iOS reach is greater than Android’s.)

The market share numbers in the table above are generally consistent with those previously released by Nielsen:

Android: 38 percent
iPhone: 27 percent
RIM: 21 percent
Windows Mobile: 9 percent
WebOS: 2 percent
Windows Phone: 1 percent

ComScore says that roughly 33 percent of Americans over the age of 13 own smartphones. Nielsen says the number is 38 percent. The two generally agree on the absolute number of mobile phone subscribers (235-ish million), although their numbers are quite a bit lower than those maintained by CTIA, which reports 302 million “wireless subscriber connections” in the US.

The difference between the two firms’ smartphone estimates is 5 points, representing roughly 12 million people in real terms.

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Stats: comScore | Stats: Size

About The Author: Greg Sterling is a Contributing Editor at Search Engine Land. He writes a personal blog Screenwerk, about SoLoMo issues and connecting the dots between online and offline. He also posts at Internet2Go, which is focused on the mobile Internet. Follow him @gsterling. See more articles by Greg Sterling

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http://christian.aubry.org Christian Aubry

You say: “but iOS reach still remains greater”. You are talking of all the Apple platforms combined together vs. all Android-based devices – http://selnd.com/iOSreach

This is the way you read Comscore’s press release. The FACT is that:

Quote: “76.8 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the three months ending in May 2011, up 11 percent from the preceding three month period. Google Android ranked as the top operating system with 38.1 percent of U.S. smartphone subscribers, up 5.1 percentage points. Apple strengthened its #2 position with 26.6 percent of the smartphone market, up 1.4 percentage points. RIM ranked third with 24.7 percent share, followed by Microsoft (5.8 percent) and Palm (2.4 percent).” End fo quote.

I read that Apple comes far second to the http://www.openhandsetalliance.com on the front of smartphone market shares. Apple’s slice is in fact just slightly larger than Blackberry’s.

Regarding the tablet market, it is another FACT that Apple has refurbished the vision of such a device earlier than other manufacturers. The iPad wave created a new momentum for the iOS, so far so good.

But manufacturers such as Acer, Asus, Samsung, LG, HTC, Dell, Lenovo, Sony Ericsson and Toshiba have already explored the concept of the tablet. They are slowly beginning to market the first generation based on Android “Honeycomb” 3.0. So wait for the second generation of mature, ubiquitous products to come and figure out the figures moving up and down as time goes by.

In the long term I remain confident. Probabilities are substantial that fridge makers jump into the Alliance and incorporate android-based applications in their products sooner or later. However, I don’t think Steve Jobs wants to get into the fridge business. ;-)