Nielsen has published its latest numbers on smartphone market share, which show Android is growing among young people, while Apple and Research In Motion (RIM) maintain the largest total market shares among OEMs. The latest research covers the month of January.
According to the report, a whopping 47 percent of those who acquired a mobile phone in the last six months chose a smartphone over a feature phone.
Android managed to snatch the largest portion of the market with a 29 percent share in January, with HTC emerging as the leading Android OEM. Twelve percent of all smartphone users have an HTC-branded Android phone.
RIM and Apple were tied for top smartphone OEMs. Smartphones running BlackBerry and Apple OSs each took a 27 percent slice of the market, leaving the scraps to Microsoft’s Windows Mobile/Windows Phone 7 (10 percent), Palm (2 percent) and “other” (1 percent).
HTC was the third top smartphone OEM when taking into account that it grabbed 7 percent of the total 10 percent of Windows Mobile/Windows Phone 7 share. In the end, HTC emerged with 19 percent of the total smartphone market.
Android was the winner with the younger set. Android captured the highest percentage of users aged 18-34, followed by Apple and then RIM.