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Android And Texting: What’s Popular in The Mobile Phone World

The latest metrics for the mobile phone industry have hit the wires, and there are some surprises from the comScore’s findings. That being said, there are also reveals that come without any surp...
Android And Texting: What’s Popular in The Mobile Phone World
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  • The latest metrics for the mobile phone industry have hit the wires, and there are some surprises from the comScore’s findings. That being said, there are also reveals that come without any surprise, whatsoever — especially when you consider the popularity of text messaging. The latest study was conducted from January 2011 until April 2011, and one thing’s for sure, the mobile device industry does not solely belong to Apple and its iPhone.

    In fact, neither Apple’s service or their ubiquitous phone are number one for any of the categories comScore studied. As far as the devices themselves go, the leading manufacturer (OEM)m is Samsung. According to comScore’s study, Samsung is responsible 24.5 percent of phones used by mobile subscribers, followed by LG (20.9), Motorola (15.6), Apple and RIM with 8.3 and 8.2 percent, respectively. On the other hand, comScore also points out that Apple had the largest growth between January and April, seeing 1.3 percentage points worth or it. Nevertheless, that’s still 16 percentage points behind Samsung, the category’s leader. The chart in question:

    comScore

    Granted, if Apple continues to win the “most acquired device” award, the companies ahead of Apple will be feeling the heat to maintain their leads.

    When it comes to the most popular smartphone in terms of usage, it’s clearly becoming an Android versus iPhone scenario (or Google versus Apple, if you will) as Microsoft, RIM and Palm all saw their marketshare dwindle in comparison to Google and Apple. In regards to Google/Android, comScore’s study reveals the company previously best known for searching the Internet now finds themselves with a sizable chunk of the mobile phone industry. Between January 2011 until April 2011, phones using the Android operating system gained 5.3 percentage points, while Apple only gained another 1.3 percent. Conversely, RIM, makers of the BlackBerry devices, saw an almost 5 percent loss of its market share.

    As for Microsoft and Palm, well, there’s always other devices to concentrate on.

    comScore

    Finally, the most popular activity when it comes to mobile devices should come with little to no surprise, although, the overall numbers just might. As one might expect, the most popular activity in regards to mobile phones is, of course, sending text messages. Big surprise, huh? No, actually the surprise comes from just how many mobile owners text each other. The comScore report indicates more than 68 percent of mobile phone owners send texts to others, which almost doubles the second most popular way to use your mobile phone: Internet browsing. From January until April, between 37 and 39.1 percent used their phone’s browser. Perhaps the other surprise comes from the amount of gaming that goes on with these phones.

    Surprisingly, game-playing ranked fifth on comScore’s list, with social media site access and downloading apps being more popular than playing Angry Birds. The chart in question:

    comScore

    So what does all this mean? That we are a nation of Samsung phone-carrying, Android/iPhone operating system using, text messaging bunch of mobile device fiends? Yes, as a matter of fact, it does.

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