War of the worlds
Digital marketing intelligence outfit comScore has released its latest quarterly look at the US smartphone market, and it revealed that Android is gaining market share as rapidly as ever.
Google's mobile platform now accounts for 33 percent of all US smartphone subscribers, up from 26 percent a quarter ago. The primary casualty of this rapid growth is RIM, which is now well behind Android in the US and in danger of falling to third behind Apple.
As you can see in the table below, Android is the only mobile platform showing growth on the other side of the pond. Even Apple is pretty much treading water, implying the equilibrium for the iPhone is around a quarter of the smartphone market.
Meanwhile both Microsoft and Palm continue to lose their already shares to Android, and Android's point of equilibrium is looking in excess of 50 percent right now, meaning there won't be much left for RIM, Microsoft and HP to fight over in future.
Top Smartphone Platforms |
|||
|
Share (%) of Smartphone Subscribers |
||
Nov-10 |
Feb-11 |
Point Change |
|
Total Smartphone Subscribers |
100.0% |
100.0% |
N/A |
|
26.0% |
33.0% |
7.0 |
RIM |
33.5% |
28.9% |
-4.6 |
Apple |
25.0% |
25.2% |
0.2 |
Microsoft |
9.0% |
7.7% |
-1.3 |
Palm |
3.9% |
2.8% |
-1.1 |
Moving onto total mobile phone subscriptions by vendor, that is looking a lot more stable. Motorola continues to lose share, while Apple gains. Meanwhile the relatively small drop from RIM implies it still sells a lot of non-smartphones.
Top Mobile OEMs |
|||
|
Share (%) of Mobile Subscribers |
||
Nov-10 |
Feb-11 |
Point Change |
|
Total Mobile Subscribers |
100.0% |
100.0% |
N/A |
Samsung |
24.5% |
24.8% |
0.3 |
LG |
20.9% |
20.9% |
0.0 |
Motorola |
17.0% |
16.1% |
-0.9 |
RIM |
8.8% |
8.6% |
-0.2 |
Apple |
6.6% |
7.5% |
0.9 |
Lastly here's a table of mobile content consumption. All categories increased modestly, implying Americans are using their phones increasingly to consume content.
Mobile Content Usage |
|||
|
Share (%) of Mobile Subscribers |
||
Nov-10 |
Feb-11 |
Point Change |
|
Total Mobile Subscribers |
100.0% |
100.0% |
N/A |
Sent text message to another phone |
67.1% |
68.8% |
1.7 |
Used browser |
35.3% |
38.4% |
3.1 |
Used downloaded apps |
33.4% |
36.6% |
3.2 |
Accessed social networking site or blog |
23.5% |
26.8% |
3.3 |
Played Games |
22.6% |
24.6% |
2.0 |
Listened to music on mobile phone |
15.0% |
17.5% |
2.5 |