Despite tough economic times, the number of U.S. residents using cell phones at the end of September rose 15 percent from June to 58.7 million, comScore said Wednesday. What’s more, the percentage of U.S. mobile subscribers downloading applications increased 2.5 percentage points to 33.1 percent.
Still, the most popular handset activity continued to be text messaging. According to comScore, 67 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers were texting during the September-ending quarter — up 1.4 percentage points from the previous three months.
The number of subscribers using handsets to browse the web rose 1.5 percentage points to 35.1 percent, comScore reported. Additionally, 23.2 percent of handset users were accessing social-networking sites or blogs on the fly — an increase of 1.8 percentage points from June.
Samsung Leads the Pack
Samsung Electronics was the U.S. market’s leading cell-phone maker in the third quarter, when the company claimed a 23.5 percent market share. LG Electronics ranked second with a 21.1 percent share, followed by Motorola (18.4 percent), Research In Motion (9.3 percent), and Nokia (7.4 percent), comScore said.
For smartphones, RIM’s BlackBerry retained its lead with a 37.3 percent share of that market segment, according to the research firm’s MobiLens service. Though Apple ranked second with a 24.2 percent share, the iPhone maker’s growth was flat in comparison with the previous quarter.
By contrast, Google’s Android operating system improved its U.S. market standing by a robust 6.5 percent to reach a 21.3 percent market share at the end of September. Moreover, Android was the only major smartphone platform to gain market share in the U.S. during the period.
Though Nokia saw its U.S. market share fall 0.7 percent in comparison with the June-ending quarter, CEO Stephen Elop said the world’s number-one handset maker is committed to boosting its U.S. handset presence.
“There is no systemic reason that Nokia cannot succeed in…