According to research from late last year, iGR estimates that 47 percent of United States smartphone owners use Android, compared to 24 percent which use an iPhone. (Note that the iPhone is now available on three out of four of the largest carriers in the country.) Among Android users, almost half researched their purchase beforehand and specifically chose an Android phone, and 27% of Android owners chose Android specifically because of its association with href=”http://google.com/” rel=”homepage” target=”_blank” title=”Google”>Google. From the study: ” …27 percent of Android users said that they selected an Android smartphone because they believed that Google was a ‘reputable company’ and therefore inferred that Android must also be reputable.”
With Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S line selling 30 million phones worldwide and an extremely wide range of price points available, Samsung seems to be winning the Android market with sheer force. HTC, LG and Motorola, the other three major Android OEMs, have product lines that are comparatively thin and spread out across multiple US carriers.It’s fair to say that Samsung is kicking butt and taking names as far ass Android goes – but they shouldn’t be cocky. The same could be said of Motorola in the fall of 2009, and of HTC in mid 2010. Who knows who’ll end up on top as 2012 plays out.
