Android Continues Its Reign Owning 52% of the Smartphone OS Market

According to the latest MobiLens report from comScore, Google’s Android smartphone operating system (OS) continued its reign atop the mountain with more than half of the U.S. market.

More than 114 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the three months ending in July, up 7 percent from the three months ending in April. Android claimed 52.2 percent of this pie, up 1.4 percentage points from the 50.8 percent it claimed in April.

Apple’s iOS was second with 33.4 percent, up 2.0 percentage points from its 31.4 percent stake in April. Meanwhile, RIM’s BlackBerry OS finished the three months ending in July with 9.5 percent of the market, down 2.1 points; Microsoft’s mobile Windows OS finished with 3.6 percent of the market, down 0.4 percentage points; and Symbian finished with 0.8 percent, down 0.5 points.

In terms of smartphone original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), Samsung led the way during the three months ending in July with 25.6 percent of the U.S. market, down 0.3 percentage points from the 25.9 percent share it had in April.

LG followed with 18.4 percent of the market, down 0.8 points. Apple was third with 16.3 percent of the market, up 1.9 percentage points. Meanwhile, Motorola finished July with 11.2 percent of the market, down 1.3 points; and HTC had 6.4 percent of the market, up 0.4 points.

According to an analyst with Canaccord Genuity, the iPhone 4S wasn’t the top-selling smartphone in the U.S. in August, the first time Apple’s darling wasn’t at the top of that list since it debuted in October 2011. The iPhone 4S was usurped by Samsung’s Galaxy S3.

The comScore report indicated that 75.6 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers (smartphone and non-smartphone) ages 13 and up sent text messages to another phone during the three months ending in July, up 1.5 percentage points from the 74.1 percent mark in April.

Meanwhile, 52.6 percent of mobile subscribers used downloaded apps, 51.2 percent used a mobile browser, 37.9 percent accessed social networking sites or blogs, 33.8 percent played games, and 28.3 percent listened to music on their phones.

A separate report from MediaMind found that mobile banner ads got a click-through rate (CTR) of 0.86 percent in North America in the first half of 2012, far better than the 0.10 percent CTR standard banners get.

However, Trademob recently revealed that 40 percent of mobile ad clicks are “useless”