Android tops BlackBerry, iPhone for first time in comScore survey

Computerworld - Google's Android smartphones took the top spot in the U.S. for the first time, hitting 31.2% in the latest comScore survey of 30,000 subscribers.

ComScore's results, for October 2010 through January 2011, put Android slightly higher, at 31.2%, than did a recent Nielsen survey of 14,000 subscribers from the same period that showed Android hitting the top spot with 29%. ComScore's latest results for Android showed it surging to 31.2% from 23.5% in its three-month survey ending in October 2010.

ComScore's latest survey also bumped down Research In Motion's BlackBerry by 5.4 percentage points to 30.4%, putting it in second place behind Android. Apple's iPhone was third and stayed flat since the last report, at 24.7%.

Microsoft finished fourth at 8%, down 1.7 percentage points from the October result, while Palm declined 0.7 percentage points to 3.2%, comScore said.

The top mobile handset manufacturer in the November-January comScore report was again Samsung, with 24.9%, followed by LG with 20.8%, Motorola with 16.5%, RIM with 8.6% and Apple with 7%. Apple and RIM only make smartphones, but the others make an array of cell phones, including smartphones.

ComScore's results again showed that texting is by far the biggest use of cell phones (68%), followed by using a browser (37%), downloading apps (35.3%), accessing social networks (25.3%), playing games (23.7%) and listening to music (16.5%).

ComScore's results are based on surveys of subscribers age 13 and older.

Matt Hamblen covers mobile and wireless, smartphones and other handhelds, and wireless networking for Computerworld. Follow Matt on Twitter at @matthamblen or subscribe to Matt's RSS feed. His e-mail address is mhamblen@computerworld.com.

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