Nielsen: Android And iPhone Both Made Gains In Q2 2012

Today, Nielsen issued a report on the smartphone market in the US as of the end of quarter 2 of this year. In it, we see Android slowly climb toward 52% market share, with 51.8% of smartphone users running some version of the Android OS on their smartphones. As far as 3-month acquirers are concerned, Android is looking pretty good there too, with 54.6% of new smartphone purchasers in the past three months opting to go with Android over the competition.

Android's growth is not at the expense of iOS, however, as over a third of smartphone users (34.3% to be exact) are using an Apple device. Even though majority of handsets out there are Android-based, Apple has a larger manufacturer share than any other mobile manufacturer out there. Nielsen says that Apple's 34% manufacturer share far outshines the share of Samsung-made Android devices, which come in at second place on the list and account for only 17% of the smartphones in the US at the end of Q2.

Sadly, this was not such a great report for Blackberry and Windows. Only 8.1% of the smartphone users in the US are using a device that runs on Blackberry, while Windows Phone 7 and Windows Mobile devices only bring home a combined 4.3% of the total market share.

So, Android and iPhone both grew some in quarter 2 of 2012 while Blackberry and Windows continue to slowly lose market share. Overall, the smartphone market grew in Q2, with 54.9% of US mobile subscribers now using a smartphone. Nielsen says that 2 out of 3 people who purchased a new phone in the last three months decided to go with a smartphone over a feature phone, so it seems like it won't be long before we see smartphones in the US break the 60% mark.

[via Nielsen]