WASHINGTON (AFP) - – Google's Android surged past Apple's iPhone
last quarter and is closing in on the Blackberry as the most
popular smartphone platform in the United States, market tracking
firm comScore said.
According to comScore, 63.2 million Americans owned smartphones
at the end of December, up 60 percent from a year earlier.
Blackberry maker Research in Motion was the US smartphone leader
at the end of the fourth quarter with 31.6 percent of the market
but its share fell from 37.3 percent the previous quarter, comScore
said.
Google's Android mobile operating system was next with a 28.7
percent of the smartphone market at the end of December, up from
21.4 percent at the end of September.
Apple was third with 25.0 percent of the market, down from 24.3
percent the previous quarter, according to comScore.
Microsoft software was running on 8.4 percent of the smartphones
in the United States, down from 9.9 percent the previous quarter,
comScore said, and Palm, which is owned by Hewlett-Packard, saw its
market share slip to 3.7 percent from 4.2 percent the previous
quarter.