Android is stealing market share left and right. Left from Research In Motion and right from Apple’s iOS. So says a new report from comScore that chronicles the growth of Google’s mobile operating system during May, June and July compared to the preceding three-month period.
comScore’s MobiLens service ranked mobile operating systems in the U.S. based on market share among mobile subscribers age 13 and older. comScore also reviewed the most popular activities and content accessed on the devices.
The July report ranked Samsung as the top handset manufacturer with a 23.1 percent market share. LG ranked second with 21.1 percent, followed by Motorola with 19.8 percent, RIM with nine percent, and Nokia with 7.8 percent. But the story shifts when you drill down to the smartphone market. RIM leads in smartphones with 39.9 percent for the BlackBerry maker.
Puffing Up Android
More than 53 million people in the U.S. use smartphones. Although RIM leads the charge, Apple is gaining ground with a 23.8 percent share. But Google’s Android is the real growth story, gaining five percentage points in the three-month period to wind up with 17 percent of all smartphone subscribers.
However, Michael Disabato, managing vice president of network and telecom at Gartner, is slower to declare Android the victor.
“How many of those Android devices really compete against iPhone and how much of it looks like another clamshell phone? When people start making these specious remarks, they better start breaking down what market segment they are looking at,” Disabato said. “Apple doesn’t go to the clamshell-candy-bar-stick-it-in-your-pocket-and-just-make-phone-calls market. It’s a computer that just happens to have a lot of radios in it.”
A more accurate comparison to Apple would be to look at smartphones that are running Android 2.2, Disabato said. Part of the reason Android is capturing market share is because it’s on a…