comScore reported key trends in the U.S. mobile phone industry during the three month average period ending May 2010 compared to the preceding three-month average. For the 3 month average period ending in May, 234 million Americans age 13 and older used mobile devices.
Device manufacturer Samsung ranked as the top OEM with 22.4 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers, up one percentage point from the preceding three month period. LG ranked second with 21.5 percent share, followed by Motorola (21.2 percent share), RIM (8.7 percent share, up 0.5 percentage point) and Nokia (8.1 percent share).
49.1 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the three months ending in May, up 8.1 percent from the corresponding February period. RIM was the leading mobile smartphone platform in the U.S. with 41.7 percent share of U.S. smartphone subscribers, followed by Apple with 24.4 percent share and Microsoft with 13.2 percent.
Google saw significant growth during the period, up 4.0 percentage points to capture 13.0 percent of smartphone subscribers, while Palm rounded out the top five with 4.8 percent. Despite losing share to Google Android, most smartphone platforms continue to gain subscribers as the smartphone market overall continues to grow.
65.2 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers used text messaging on their mobile device in May, up 1.4 percentage points versus the prior three month period, while browsers were used by 31.9 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers (up 2.3 percentage points).
Subscribers who used downloaded applications comprised 30.0 percent of the mobile audience, representing an increase of 2.1 percentage points from the previous period. Accessing of social networking sites or blogs also saw significant growth, increasing 2.6 percentage points to 20.8 percent of mobile subscribers.
