Nielsen: Android makes huge gains in US smartphone marketshare, RIM takes a backseat, Apple leads in desirability

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Nielsen's just released a report finding that 29.7 percent of mobile
users in the United States now own a smartphone. Of that 29.7 percent
(which you can see in the pie chart above), 27.9 percent of them have
iPhones, 27.4 percent are BlackBerry users, and 22.7 percent have an
Android device. Windows Mobile, Symbian, Linux and Palm are left to
divide up the remaining chunk -- about 22 percent -- of the market.
That's a massive shift from the beginning of the year, when the iPhone
boasted 28 percent of the market, BlackBerry had 35 percent, and
Windows Mobile about 19 percent. The biggest winner in this story is
Android, which has gone from 9 percent of the smartphone-owning market
at the beginning of the year, to 22.7 percent of the market today. The
story looks a bit different, however, when people are asked about what
kind of smartphone they would like to own next. In that case, Apple
and Google are the big winners, with 30 percent of 'likely' smartphone
upgraders' reporting they'd like an iPhone, while 28 percent said they
want an Android device, and only 13 percent reporting that they're
interested in a BlackBerry device.

The picture looks very much the same with current smartphone owners,
as well. As far as gender goes, the percentages are very similar when
asked what smartphone is desired next, except that more men report
wanting an Android device, while more women -- about 12 percent more
-- say they simply don't know what they want next. Hit up the source
link for charts on all this knowledge.