More than 80 Million Americans Now Own Smartphones

Reston : comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, has released data from the comScore MobiLens service, reporting key trends in the U.S. mobile phone industry during the three month average period ending July 2011. The study surveyed more than 30,000 U.S. mobile subscribers and found Samsung to be the top handset manufacturer overall with 25.5 percent market share. Google Android continued to gain ground in the smartphone market reaching 41.8 percent market share.

For the three month average period ending in July, 234 million Americans ages 13 and older used mobile devices. Device manufacturer Samsung ranked as the top OEM with 25.5 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers (up 1.0 percentage points), followed by LG with 20.9 percent share and Motorola with 14.1 percent share. Apple strengthened its position at #4 with 9.5 percent share of mobile subscribers (up 1.2 percentage points), while RIM rounded out the top five with 7.6 percent share.

82.2 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the three months ending in July 2011, up 10 percent from the preceding three month period. Google Android ranked as the top smartphone platform with 41.8 percent market share, up 5.4 percentage points. Apple strengthened its #2 position with 27.0 percent of the smartphone market, up 1.0 percentage points from the prior reporting period. RIM ranked third with 21.7 percent share, followed by Microsoft (5.7 percent) and Symbian (1.9 percent).

In July, 70 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers used text messaging on their mobile device, up 1.2 percentage points. Browsers were used by 41.1 percent of subscribers (up 2.0 percentage points), while downloaded applications were used by 40.6 percent (up 2.8 percentage points). Accessing of social networking sites or blogs increased 2.1 percentage points to 30.1 percent of mobile subscribers. Game-playing was done by 27.8 percent of the mobile audience (up 1.6 percentage points), while 20.3 percent listened to music on their phones (up 2.3 percentage points).