iPhone still second-place US smartphone while Android grows

The latest data from market research firm comScore shows Apple holding on to a quarter of the US smartphone market, which grew roughly 18 percent over the last six months. That makes the iPhone the number two smartphone in the US, though it still lags well behind number one RIM. Android-based devices are still growing rapidly in popularity.

Over the last few months, comScore data shows RIM and Apple holding pretty much steady, with RIM at 43 percent and Apple at 25.1 percent. Unsurprisingly, Palm (which includes webOS and PalmOS) devices and Microsoft-powered devices continued to decline. Android-based devices, however, continued to rise sharply, enough to eclipse Palm to take fourth place in the US market.

Though Apple still lags significantly behind RIM in this category, it's worth noting that Apple has been able to hold a pretty steady share over the last few months. This is in spite the typical cyclical ebb and flow of Apple's market share, which has tended to drop significantly in winter in anticipation of updated iPhone models that are typically released in June or July, followed by a sharp spike in late summer or early fall.

comScore says that an average of 42.7 million Americans were actively using smartphones between November 2009 and January 2010. That's about 18 percent of the overall 234 million Americans using a mobile phone over the same period. Motorola, LG, Samsung, and Nokia continue to lead overall sales of mobile phones in the US.

Source: Arstechnica.com