Android Devices Pull Ahead in U.S. Smartphone Race

A new Nielsen survey of postpaid mobile subscribers released Thursday suggests that Google's Android platform may be pulling ahead of Apple's iOS and Research In Motion's BlackBerry OS in the U.S. smartphone race. Google held a 29 percent share of the mobile platform market in the three months through January, followed by Apple and RIM, which were tied at 27 percent. Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 platform trailed at 10 percent.

However, Android sales during the period were fractured among multiple vendors, including HTC, Motorola and Samsung as well as a growing list of new entrants. From the smartphone vendor perspective, Apple and RIM were tied for first place at 27 percent, followed by HTC at 19 percent (12 percent Android, seven percent WP7), Motorola at 11 percent (10 percent Android, one percent WP7) and Samsung at seven percent (five percent Android, two percent WP7).

Despite buy-one-get-one promotions at both AT&T and T-Mobile, NPD analysts noted that WP7 handsets entered the market with a lower share than either Android or webOS at their debuts. Still, Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 strategy should be viewed as a "long-term play which is still in the ecosystem-building phase," noted Al Hilwa, director of applications development software at IDC.

Off To a Good Start

Microsoft has made the case for WP7's differentiation and improved integration, noted Ross Rubin, executive director of industry analysis for NPD. "Now the company must close the feature gap, offer more exclusive capabilities, work with partners to deliver hardware with better differentiation, and leverage its extensive experience in driving developer communities to increase its app offerings," Ross said.

Hilwa thinks WP7 is off to a good start with Microsoft's app store being one of the most successful both in number buildup and the quality of the portfolio at this stage of the game. "Most importantly,...

Source: http://www.mobile-tech-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=77567

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