RIM, Samsung, Motorola Lead Mobile Subscriber Market Share: ComScore

The comScore report found Samsung ranked as the top handset manufacturer, while BlackBerry maker RIM led smartphones.

The October comScore MobiLens report, which reported key trends in the U.S. mobile phone industry during the three-month average period ending October, found Samsung to be the top handset manufacturer overall with 24.2 percent market share, while RIM led among smartphone platforms with 35.8 percent market share.

The report ranked the leading mobile OEMs and smartphone operating system platforms in the United States according to their share of current mobile subscribers ages 13 and older, and reviewed the most popular activities and content accessed via the subscriber's primary mobile phone.

For the three-month period ending in October, 234 million Americans ages 13 and older used mobile devices, the report found. Device manufacturer Samsung ranked as the top OEM with 24.2 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers, up 1.1 percentage points from the three-month period ending in July. LG ranked second with 21.0 percent share, followed by Motorola (17.7 percent share), RIM (9.3 percent share, up 0.3 percentage points) and Nokia (7.1 percent share).

The report noted 60.7 million people in the United States owned smartphones during the three months ending in October, up 14 percent from the preceding three-month period, representing one out of every four mobile subscribers. RIM was the leading mobile smartphone platform in the United States with 35.8 percent share of U.S. smartphone subscribers, followed by Apple with 24.6 percent share (up 0.8 percentage points).

According to comScore data, Google Android saw another month of strong growth, rising 6.5 percentage points to capture 23.5 percent of smartphone subscribers. Microsoft accounted for 9.7 percent of smartphone subscribers, while Palm rounded out the top five with 3.9 percent. "Despite losing share to Android, most smartphone platforms continue to gain subscribers as the smartphone market overall continues to grow," the report said.

In October, 68.1 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers used text messaging on their mobile device, up 2.1 percentage points versus the prior three-month period, while browsers were used by 36.2 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers (up 2.6 percentage points), the report found. Subscribers who used downloaded applications made up 33.7 percent of the mobile audience, representing an increase of 2.3 percentage points.

Accessing of social networking sites, such as Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, or accessing blogs increased 2.4 percentage points, representing 24.2 percent of mobile subscribers. Playing mobile games represented 23.7 percent of the mobile audience (up 1.4 percentage points), while listening to music increased 0.9 percentage points, representing 15.4 percent of subscribers.

In a preceding report focusing on the mobile browsing habits of smartphone and non-smartphone users, ComScore found that the number of smartphone users accessing mobile content through browsers and applications now surpasses that of non-smartphone users. In the three-month average ending August 2010, smartphone subscribers made up 60 percent of those who used a downloaded application and 55 percent of those who used a browser.

The most recent report noted that in August, 75.6 million mobile subscribers ages 13 and older used downloaded applications, with smartphone users representing 60.4 percent, up from 43.6 percent in August 2009. For the same period, 80.8 million mobile subscribers used their browser, with smartphone subscribers composing 55.5 percent, up from 41.4 percent a year ago.