Nielsen: two out of three US buyers opt for smartphones

According to the latest report by Nielsen, smartphone penetration continued to increase during the second quarter of 2012, with 54.9 percent of US mobile subscribers now owning smartphones as of June 2012. Two out of every three handsets owned by US consumers now are smartphone models.

The report noted that Android continued to lead the US smartphone market with a 51.8% share of smartphone handsets in June 2012. Apple's iOS running on their iPhone handsets came in second with 34.3%, and RIM's BlackBerry devices are in third place with 8.1%.

Looking at the same figures by manufacturer Apple comes out way out in front with a 34% share of all smartphone's purchased in the US. Samsung, while leading the Android camp with 17% market share, came in second overall. HTC grabbed 14% of the Android market but was a very close third overall with around 17.4% of the US smartpone market versus Samsung's 17.5% when factoring in Windows Phone and Windows Mobile devices. Motorola took the fourth position with 11% and Research In Motion was fifth with 9%.

Handsets running Windows Phone 7 amounted to just 1.3% of the total smartphone market, with HTC and Samsung claiming 0.5% each and Nokia the remaining 0.3%. Windows Mobile handsets from various vendors totaled 3.2%, with HTC taking the majority of that category, and Nokia's Symbian OS amounted to 0.9%.

Among recent acquirers who purchased a smartphone over a three month period up to June 2012, 54 percent said they chose an Android handset and 36 percent bought an iPhone.  BlackBerry purchases came in at just 4% in the same time frame while the others made up for the remaining 5% market share.