Key trends on U.S. mobile phone industry for iPhone app developers.

July 6th, 2011 by Saptarshi Roy Chaudhury No comments »

comScore’s latest released data from its MobiLens service, finds Samsung to be the top handset manufacturer while Google Android leads the market among smartphone platforms in U.S. market.

OEM Market

Samsung ranked as the top handset manufacturer with 24.8% market share, followed by LG (21.1%) and Motorola with 15.1%. Apple improved its position at #4 by 1.2% to occupy 8.7% share of mobile subscribers.

Top Mobile OEMs 3 Month Avg. Ending May 2011 vs. 3 Month Avg. Ending Feb. 2011 Total U.S. Mobile Subscribers Ages 13+ Source: comScore MobiLens
	Share (%) of Mobile Subscribers
	Feb-11	May-11	Point Change
Total Mobile Subscribers	100.0%	100.0%	N/A
Samsung	24.8%	24.8%	0.0
LG	20.9%	21.1%	0.2
Motorola	16.1%	15.1%	-1.0
Apple	7.5%	8.7%	1.2
RIM	8.6%	8.1%	-0.5

Smartphone Platform Market

Google Android led the smartphone platform market with 38.1% of U.S. smartphone subscribers. Android’s market share went up 5.1%. Apple strengthened its position at #2 with 26.6 percent, a jump of up 1.4%. RIM ranked third 24.7%, followed by Microsoft (5.8%) and Palm (2.4%).

Top Smartphone Platforms, 3 Month Avg. Ending May 2011 vs. 3 Month Avg. Ending Feb. 2011 Total U.S. Smartphone Subscribers Ages 13+ Source: comScore MobiLens
	Share (%) of Smartphone Subscribers
	Feb-11	May-11	Point Change
Total Smartphone Subscribers	100.0%	100.0%	N/A
Google	33.0%	38.1%	5.1
Apple	25.2%	26.6%	1.4
RIM	28.9%	24.7%	-4.2
Microsoft	7.7%	5.8%	-1.9
Palm	2.8%	2.4%	-0.4

Mobile Content Usage

69.5 % of mobile subscribers used text messaging while 39.8% used browsers. App downloads in May went up by 2%. Social networking and blogging increased by 1.8% to 28.6% among mobile users. Game-playing on mobile phones increased by 2.3% to reach 26.9 % while 18.6 % subscribers listened to music on their phones.

Mobile Content Usage, 3 Month Avg. Ending May 2011 vs. 3 Month Avg. Ending Feb. 2011 Total U.S. Mobile Subscribers Ages 13+ Source: comScore MobiLens
	Share (%) of Mobile Subscribers
	Feb-11	May-11	Point Change
Total Mobile Subscribers	100.0%	100.0%	N/A
Sent text message to another phone	68.8%	69.5%	0.7
Used browser	38.3%	39.8%	1.5
Used downloaded apps	36.6%	38.6%	2.0
Accessed social networking site or blog	26.8%	28.6%	1.8
Played Games	24.6%	26.9%	2.3
Listened to music on mobile phone	17.5%	18.6%	1.1