Online and mobile data research company comScore has just released monthly mobile usage data from its MobiLens service, which reports mobile usage stats for the three month average period ending January 2012. One of the notable data points from the report is that over 100 million U.S. mobile subscribers (101.3 million to be exact) are using smartphones, which is up from 97.9 million in the previous period. That’s up 13 percent since October 2011. During the period ending January 2012, 234 million Americans age 13 and older used mobile devices in general.
Similar to last month’s findings, Google’s Android OS continued to grow its share in the smartphone market, accounting for 48.6 percent of smartphone subscribers (up 2.3 percentage points) followed by Apple with 29.5 percent market share (up 1.4 percentage points). RIM ranked third with 15.2 percent share, followed by Microsoft (4.4 percent) and Symbian (1.5 percent).
In terms of device manufacturers, Samsung ranked as the top OEM with 25.4 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers, followed by LG with 19.7 percent share and Motorola with 13.2 percent share. Apple’s share was 12.8 percent of total mobile subscribers (which is up 2 percentage points), while RIM rounded out the top five with 6.6 percent. Samsung, LG and Motorola all decreased in their shares for the period, while Apple was the only manufacturer who saw an increase in share.
As mobile phone usage increases and smartphone adoption grows, more and more consumers are actually using their mobile for functions other than phone calls. In January, 74.6 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers used text messaging on their mobile device, up 2.8 percentage points. Downloaded applications were used by 48.6 percent of subscribers (up 4.8 percentage points), while browsers were used by 48.5 percent (up 4.5 percentage points).
More users accessed social networking sites or blogs, with behavior up 3.4 percentage points to 35.7 percent of mobile subscribers. 31.8 percent of the mobile audience played games on their mobile phones (up 2.6 percentage points), while 24.5 percent listened to music on their phones (up 3.3 percentage points).
Clearly smartphone usage is growing by leaps and bounds in the U.S. As we heard last week, Pew reported that smartphone owners outnumber those on lower end devices. And Nielsen revealed that 66 percent of Americans ages 24-35 own a smartphone.
Comment