Android tops RIM in US smartphone market share, Apple’s iPhone third

Android surpassed the sales of BlackBerry and became the largest mobile platform in the United States at the start of 2011. Apple’s iOS and their iPhone took only the third place on the list.

According to some new data released Monday, Google’s Android is the largest mobile platform used since the start of this year. It increased with over 7.7 percent over the previous quarter of 2011. Now it has a 31.2 percent share, which passes RIM, who has only 30.4 percent share.

Research in Motion slid only 5.4 percent while iOS, the operating system developed by Apple, gone up only with 0.1 percent. Now Apple has a 24.7 totally percent share. However, the numbers are applying only for the period before the release of the new iPad 2, which is supposed to grow the total sales much more.

iOS and Android were the only mobile platforms that have seen gains quarter after quarter. Microsoft’s platform dipped for 1.7 percent to 8 percent. Plam registered a slide of 0.7 percent to 3.2 percent total.

On the month of January, over 234 million Americans used mobile devices and more than 65.8 million people owned a smartphone.