comScore reported the key trends in the U.S. mobile phone industry during the three month average period ending November 2011. Their market study surveyed more than 30,000 U.S. mobile subscribers and found that 234 million Americans age 13 and older used mobile devices.
Device manufacturer Samsung ranked as the top OEM with 25.6 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers (up 0.3 percentage points), followed by LG with 20.5 percent share and Motorola with 13.7 percent share.
Apple strengthened its position at number four rank -- with 11.2 percent share of total mobile subscribers (up 1.4 percentage points), while RIM rounded out the top five with 6.5 percent share.
91.4 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the three months ending in November -- that's up 8 percent from the preceding three month period.
Google Android ranked as the top smartphone platform with 46.9 percent market share, up 3.1 percentage points from the prior three-month period.
Apple maintained its number two position, growing 1.4 percentage point to 28.7 percent of the smartphone market. RIM ranked third with 16.6 percent share, followed by Microsoft (5.2 percent) and Symbian (1.5 percent).
In November, 72.6 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers used text messaging on their mobile device -- that's up by 2.1 percentage points. Downloaded applications were used by 44.9 percent of subscribers (up 3.3 percentage points), while browsers were used by 44.4 percent (up 2.3 percentage points).
Accessing of social networking sites or blogs increased 2.1 percentage points to 33.0 percent of mobile subscribers. Game-playing was done by 29.7 percent of the mobile audience (up 1.2 percentage points), while 21.7 percent listened to music on their phones (up 1.0 percentage points).
