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Why 110 Million Americans will Own a Smartphone

comScore released results from a market study of first-time U.S. smartphone owners, which found that nearly half of previous mobile feature phone subscribers who acquired a new device during April 2012 switched to a smartphone.

Among this group, the vast majority (61.5 percent) of consumers acquired devices running the Google Android platform, with 25.2 percent choosing Apple iOS devices, 7.1 percent opting for Microsoft OS smartphones, while RIM represented just 4.8 percent of the total.

"The growing number of smartphones available to consumers, accompanied by the decrease in price points and surge in mobile media content, have made smartphone ownership possible and desirable for many more Americans," said Mark Donovan, comScore SVP of Mobile.

Within the year, comScore expects to see smartphone owners become the mobile mainstream -- a major milestone that represents the enormous potential for marketers to reach a growing audience of savvy consumers.

U.S. smartphone adoption has grown rapidly with nearly 110 million Americans owning a smartphone device in April 2012 -- that's up by an amazing 44 percent from the previous year.

Analysis of new smartphone owners found that 47.5 percent of feature phone subscribers who acquired a device in April switched to a smartphone -- that's an increase of 9.5 percentage points from the previous year.

Slightly more than half (50.7 percent) of feature phone subscribers in the market for a device chose to acquire another feature phone, with this group witnessing a rapid decline during the past year.

In comparison, among the existing smartphone subscribers that acquired a new smartphone device in the past month, 54.2 percent chose Google Android devices while 33.5 percent preferred Apple devices. RIM accounted for 9.6 percent of acquired devices, while Microsoft represented 3.0 percent.

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