Nielsen ran monthly surveys of mobile consumers in the United States from July to September 2010, and said back then that 33 percent expressed interest for an Apple iPhone, while slightly more than a quarter (26 percent) said they desired a device with Android and 13 percent said they wanted a Blackberry device. How quickly things change.
This morning, Nielsen posited that those same surveys for January 2011 to March 2011 now show that 31 percent of consumers who plan to get a new smartphone indicated that Android was now their preferred OS. Apple’s iOS has slipped slightly in popularity, to 30 percent.
RIM / Blackberry, meanwhile, is down to 11 percent. Nearly 20 percent of consumers are unsure of what to choose next.
Perhaps surprisingly, desire for Windows Phone devices actually dropped a percent (from 7% to 6%), while interest in Symbian devices remains non-existent when it comes to the US.
At the end of last year, Nielsen posited that Apple’s iOS and Android were tied for “most desired operating system” when mobile users who planned to upgrade to a smartphone in the next year were asked about their next phone. Android comes out on top for the first time in the first quarter of 2011, according to Nielsen’s data (see chart above).
Nielsen says the trend is visible at the counter, too. Zooming in on sales, half of those surveyed in March 2011 who indicated they had purchased a smartphone in the past six months said they had chosen an Android device. A quarter of recent acquirers said they bought an Apple iPhone, and 15 percent said they had picked a Blackberry phone.
Nielsen is a leading global provider of information and insights into what consumers watch and buy. Nielsen is a information and measurement company with leading market positions in marketing and consumer information, television and other media measurement, online intelligence, mobile measurement, trade shows and related properties. Nielsen has a presence in approximately 100 countries, with headquarters in New York, USA and Diemen, the Netherlands.
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