The two dominant mobile operating platforms today, Android and iOS, are continuing to gain market share in the US at the expense of the BlackBerry platform.

New data from comScore reveals that Google’s and Apple’s mobile operating systems gained more market share in the US for the May to July quarter.

Research In Motion’s BlackBerry OS continues to slide in market share.

BlackBerry Declines as Android, iOS Continue Growth

According to comScore, for the months of May, June and July, there were over 114 million Americans who owned smartphones.

Android continued to lead in terms of market share with 52.2 percent of all smartphones powered by the Google-backed OS. That is a 1.4 percent gain compared to the 50.8 percent market share Android held for three month period ending in April of this year.

Meanwhile, Apple continued to gain in market share too as iOS grew a full 2 percentage points for the platform to grab a 33.4 percent market share.

This figure is compared to the 31.4 percent market share iOS had for the February, March and April period.

RIM with its BlackBerry platform, on the other hand, seems to be the platform where the exodus of people is coming from.

According to comScore, BlackBerry market share shrunk 2.1 percentage points in the May to July quarter to settle at a market share of 9.5 percent from a market share of 11.6 percent in the previous three months.

Microsoft’s Windows Phone OS also saw a decline in the three-month period ending in July albeit smaller than the decline of BlackBerry. Windows Phone declined 0.4 of a percentage point to nab 3.6 percent market share from 4.0 during the February to April period.

Symbian also continues its slow death as the platform’s market share decreased by half of a percentage point to get 0.8 percent of the US smartphone market from a previous share of 1.3 percent.

Samsung Continues OEM Lead Despite Decline

Samsung, despite experiencing a decline in the May to July months, still lead the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) pack in the US in terms of market share.

According to the data from comScore, Samsung decline 0.3 of a percentage point in the months indicated but that has not stopped the South Korean tech giant from taking 25.6 percent of the US smartphone market.

However, its share was at 25.9 percent in the previous 3 months.

LG also declined in the month to the tune of 0.8 percentage points. Its share for the May to July quarter was at 18.4 percent, enough to get it second place. That is a decline, however, from 19.2 percent in the February to May quarter.

Apple, on the other hand, increased its market share by 1.9 percentage points for the three months included in the study.

Apple got 16.3 percent market share, relatively far more than the 14.4 percent it got during the previous three months.

At fourth place is Motorola which also lost the most market share of the top 5 OEMs, comScore data reveals.

According to the comScore study, Motorola lost 1.3 percentage points to settle at a 11.2 percent market share of the US smartphone market. It managed 12.5 percent market share from February to April.

Completing the top 5 is HTC which gained 0.4 of a percentage point to snatch 6.4 percent of the US smartphone market from a previous share of 6 percent.

Americans Using Their Smartphones For More Of Everything

Americans are now using their smartphones for more of everything they used to do with their devices. According to the data revealed by comScore, Americans increased their mobile content usage across all metrics for the months of May, June and July.

The comScore data reveals that 75.6 percent of mobile subscribers sent text messages to other phones. That is a 1.5 percentage point increase from the 74.1 percent of February to April.

More Americans downloaded apps to their phones too with 52.6 percent saying so for the months of May, June and July. This is a 2.4 percentage points increase from 50.2 percent in February, March and April of this year.

Mobile internet surfing is also on the rise with an increase of 2.2 percentage points in this metric to a market share of 51.2 percent. That is up from 49 percent from the previous period.

Social networking and blog browsing on the go has also increase from 36 percent to 37.9 percent, an increase of 1.9 percentage points.

Mobile gaming is also on the rise, according to the comScore data, which is consistent with data from the research firm NPD Group. According to comScore, 33.8 percent of mobile subscribers played games on their devices for the period, an increase of 0.7 of a percentage point from 33.1 percent.

Music listening also increase 2.5 percentage points from 25.8 percent to 28.3 percent.

Images from abbyladybug, Stephane & Dan Zen on Flickr (CC)

About Solon Harmony Dolor

A passion for technology and journalism makes this upcoming writer very interested in social media and technology news. Fresh from finishing an English and Journalism degree from the University of the Philippines Diliman, he aims to bring interesting news to our readers .