According to the recently released results of a mobile media report by Nielsen, iPhone has considerably expanded its market share especially after Apple released its 4S handset in October last year. Along with this, the data also reveals that more tech enthusiasts purchased smartphones over feature phones in the last quarter of 2011.
Considering the statistics revealed by this information, we can safely say that the iPhone 4S has significantly contributed to the rising popularity of Apple handset among the masses, with more aspiring buyers preferring the new device with iOS 5. Comparing all smartphone users with recent acquirers in terms of the mobile platform favored, iOS has jumped from 30 percent in the previous quarters to 37 percent. However, Android is progressing at an almost similar pace with a market share of 51.7 percent among all smartphone users, as compared to 46.3 percent in recent ones.
The report also shed light on the growing smartphone penetration in the market as of Q4 2011. Among all the mobile consumers situated in the U.S., 46 percent opted for smartphones. Furthermore, about 60 percent of mobile phone buyers in the last three months chose this kind over feature phones. While Android and iOS continued an upward growth, RIM saw a downfall in this quarter as it dipped from 14.9 percent to 6 percent.
The market share of other operating systems like Symbian, Windows Mobile and webOS also dropped as its popularity among recent smartphone owners decreased. On the other hand, Windows Phone 7 was reported to be preferred by 1.4 percent users.
