For the three month average period ending in January, 234 million Americans used mobile devices, according to a new report from comScore.

Samsung was the top handset maker with 24.9 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers, up 0.7 percent from the three month period ending in October. LG ranked second with 20.8 percent share, followed by Motorola (16.5%), RIM (8.6%) and Apple (7%).

comScore said 65.8 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones for the period ending in January, up 8 percent from the previous three-month period. Google Android took the top spot among smartphone platforms for the first time in January with 31.2 percent market share. RIM trailed closely with 30.4 percent market share, followed by Apple with 24.7 percent. Microsoft (8%) and Palm (3.2%) rounded out the top five.

In January, 68.1 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers used text messaging on their mobile device, while browsers were used by 37 percent of subscribers (up 0.8%). Subscribers who used downloaded applications accounted for 35.3 percent of the mobile audience, representing an increase of 1.6 percent.

Accessing social networking sites or blogs increased 1.1 percent, representing 25.3 percent of mobile subscribers. Playing games represented 23.7 percent of the mobile audience, while listening to music accounted for 16.5 percent (up 1.1%).