By Leena Rao
The report shows that during the period, 234 million Americans ages 13 and older used mobile devices (this number remained steady from the previous month). But, in terms of smartphones, 72.5 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the three months ending in March 2011, up 15 percent from the preceding three-month period.
Device manufacturer Samsung ranked as the top OEM with 24.5 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers. LG (LGCIF.PK) ranked second with 20.9 percent share, followed by Motorola (MMI) with15.8 percent and RIM (8.4 percent). Apple continued to gain share following the launch of the Verizon iPhone earlier this year, up 1.1 percentage points to reach 7.9 percent of subscribers.
With respect to smartphone share Google (GOOG) Android grew 6 percentage points to a 34.7 percent market share, while RIM ranked second with 27.1 percent share. Apple grew 0.5 points to 25.5 percent share, followed by Microsoft (MSFT) with 7.5 percent and Palm (2.8 percent). Google’s share continues to grow after passing both iOS and RIM for smartphone share in February.
ComScore also examines how mobile subscribers are using their phones and reported that in March 68.6 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers texted using their phone. Browsers were used by 38.6 percent of subscribers (up 2.2 percentage points), while downloaded applications were used by 37.3 percent (up 2.9 percentage points). Accessing social networking sites or blogs increased 2.6 percentage points, representing 27.3 percent of mobile subscribers. And 25.7 percent of the mobile audience used the phone to play games, while listening to music represented 17.9 percent.
