Half of all U.S. mobile phones are smartphones: Nielsen

Computerworld - Almost half of the mobile phones in use in the U.S. are smartphones, according to a Nielsen survey.

Specifically, a Nielsen Mobile Insights survey of 20,000 cellphone users found that 49.7% all U.S. mobile phones are smartphones. That figure represents a 38% increase in smartphone usage from a year ago, Nielsen said in a blog post on Thursday.

In the three-month period ending in February, more than 66% of buyers of a new mobile device chose a smartphone over what's called a feature phone, according to Nielsen.

Nielsen reported that Android devices account for 48% of the smartphones in use, while iPhones represent 32.1% of the market and BlackBerries account for 11.6%. In the three months ending in February, 48% of smartphone buyers chose an Android phone and 43% chose an iPhone, Nielsen said.

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 email address is mhamblen@computerworld.com.

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