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Android first in US market share; Apple, RIM tied for second

By

On March 3, 2011, 3:22 PM EST

Nielsen has posed the question "Who is winning the US smartphone battle?" and has answered it in two ways. Then the company put it all into a nice chart to help you understand, which you can see below.

The first answer is Google's Android, if we're looking at smartphone OS market share. The second is Apple's iPhone tied with Research in Motion's BlackBerry, if we're looking at smartphone manufacturer market share.

Let's look more closely at the numbers. Android has 29 percent share (broken down into 12 percent for HTC, 10 percent for Motorola, 5 percent for Samsung, and 2 percent for Other). Both iPhone and Blackberry have 27 percent. Microsoft, HP, and Symbian are not a threat, yet.

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User Comments (7)

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andreasf93
on March 4, 2011
5:52 AM

Android developers deserve it anyway. They have the superior OS.

Reply

Guest
on March 4, 2011
6:15 AM

The shares are equivalent given the error of the survey!

Reply

stewi0001
on March 4, 2011
7:00 AM

I'm surprised Blackberry is hanging in there. I wish them luck but it's gonna be a tough fight for them

Reply

Guest
on March 4, 2011
7:15 AM

I have been to the Nielsen website. The above figures are a census of actual sales, not a survey of a small sample of users. In other words, "margin of error" is not relevant.

Although obviously there is likely to be some error in any figure ever presented (including, for example, the vote count in elections) the "margin of error" should be negligible in percentage terms.

Reply

mario
on March 4, 2011
9:16 AM

Android is a superior OS really!? Why? Because of it's 'openness', it really has worked wonders for them: [link]

If any OS is superior I would say it have to be webOS. It's a shame it hasn't caught any traction.

Reply

ViperSniper2
on March 5, 2011
2:38 PM

@Guest "The shares are equivalent given the error of the survey!"

If you look at an actual graphical interpretation of Android vs iOS (or even all the rest), Android totally obliterates the competition. In the last quarter alone, they completely cremated everyone on smartphones..... again! lol..... with an over 800% increase in sold smartphone unit sales by 'Activations' alone. You can't argue w/ that. When activation means actually active on Carriers. NOT..... sitting on a shelf in store inventories or as a gift to some dead person who got it and couldn't activate it!

At the same time, Apple (along w/ every other device) running on iOS, RIM OS, WebOS, Symbian, etc must by this evidence of actual Activation Rates (not by iPods (including Nanos), Apple TVs, iPads sold totals) compared to sales included outside of Smartphones, Apple, etc have actually declined in market share! [note: includes Nanos that DON'T run iOS anyway]

If... (yes if) Android was to keep this rate of growth that boosted them into FIRST in Market Share sales by ACTIVATIONS...... Android will end up doing the same thing, it did in ONE year to iPhones..... to iFADs AGAIN!!! ....you can bet on it. Just like Windows (open cross platform OS) did by completely Obliterating Apple's Desktop Computer Competition in the 90's!

TRUTH= "if you (Apple) fail to learn from history (from your own, Compuserve's and AOL HELL's history) that CLOSED Platforms and Networks..... indeed FAIL, you are Doomed to Repeat it.... AGAIN!!!" ^_^

Reply

Leeky
on March 6, 2011
3:02 AM

Android is a superior OS really!? Why? Because of it's 'openness', it really has worked wonders for them: [link]

Wow....Needless to say I just checked my HTC Desire for any of them - I have the free versions of one of those items, but its not listed, so might be OK.

My phone really hasn't been happy lately though.. Seems to stop sending and receiving messages, weather information, calls, and well everything rather randomly.

Maybe I'm infected too.

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