A new study from the Nielsen research firm says that Apple is now the leading smartphone maker in the United States with 28 percent of the market. While Apple may have the single largest piece of the smartphone market, however, the combined number of Android phones from all manufacturers comes in at 39 percent.
“Because Apple is the only company manufacturing smartphones with the iOS operating system, it is clearly the top smartphone manufacturer in the United States,” the research firm said.
HTC’s handsets currently hold 14 percent of the U.S. smartphone market, making it the top Android-based smartphone builder. Motorola makes up 11 percent of the Android market, Samsung has 8 percent, and another 6 percent is taken up by a mix of other smartphone makers.
RIM’s Blackberry accounts for 20 percent of the U.S. smartphone market. Blackberry used to account for more of the smartphone market, but has been on the decline.
Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 platform takes up 9 percent of the U.S. smartphone market, and HTC is the top seller there, too. Rounding out the tail end of the market, HP’s WebOS and Nokia’s Symbian OS each make up only two percent of the smartphones in the U.S.