A new report from Nielsen says that Android is the most popular mobile operating system among new buyers in the United States. The data which was compiled for August shows that Android based devices were more popular than the iPhone iOS and RIM based devices.
Nielsen compiled the report after the iPhone 4 became available in June and covers the months spanning from January 2010 to August 2010. In that period 32% users purchased an Android device as compare to approximately 25% RIM and iPhone devices each.
RIM is still ahead in the overall market share with 31% users, however, it is losing steam to Apple iOS based devices who command 28% market share. Android has grown an impressive 11% in the past six months to have a market share of 19%.
Other major operating systems like Palm Pre, Windows Phone and Symbian command 22% of the market share. It would be interesting to see whether Microsoft will be able to penetrate the heavily competitive market with the launch of Windows Phone 7.
Android which is really turning out the closest competitor to the iPhone iOS will definitely gain more market share in the coming few months. With the holiday season approaching and a slew of Internet Tablets being launched, the OS market share is bound to change. So it would be interesting to see where these OS stand in somewhere February 2011.
