Among the 234 million cell-phone users over age 13 in the U.S. in the fourth quarter, Motorola-manufactured hardware dominated the market of all mobile users, according to a comScore survey released Monday. Among operating systems, Research In Motion had the largest smartphone market share.
The survey showed only a slight loss by the two industry leaders from the period ending in September, a 1.4 percent drop for Motorola to 23.4 percent, and a one percent slip by RIM to 41.6 percent.
But the real OS action was with Apple’s iPhone operating system and Google’s Android OS, which both had slight gains. The iPhone OS rose 1.2 percent, from 24.1 percent of the market to 25.3 percent. Android had a bigger gain of 2.7 percent, from 2.5 in September to 5.2 percent in December, although its share was still the lowest. The survey does not take into account any gains from the Nexus One handset launched by Google in January and sold unlocked from its online store.
Apple’s second-place status is impressive since its OS is only available on the iPhone.
The numbers, while interesting, say little at a time of such fluctuation in the smartphone industry, said J.D. Power and Associates senior telecommunications analyst Kirk Parsons.
“One point in time does not make a trend,” Parsons said. “RIM is coming out with a couple of their own launches in early spring or summer, so I guess the market-share numbers will rise and fall with the rollout of new devices. I do expect Android to increase its share in 2010 at the expense of Palm, just given the size and scope of Android-based devices set to launch this year.”
The second-place hardware ranking went to LG Electronics in the OEM market, with 21.7 percent, followed by Samsung with 20.4 percent, Nokia with 9.6 percent,…