Android outsells iPhone for first time in US

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 Monday.

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.- AFP