The latest Nielsen survey released shows some pretty amazing trends in the cell phone industry. First to note is that smartphones now account for 50% of all phone purchases in the U.S., marking a 38% increase over last year at this time. According to Nielsen, this growth is attributed to increasing smartphone adoption, with more than two thirds of the phones purchased in the last three months being smartphones.

What could be considered even more of a telling sign of things to come are the numbers per platform. Android remained unchanged with 48% of the market share, with iOS coming in at 43% and the remaining 9% comprised of RIM, Nokia and Microsoft. The increase of iOS and the unchanged share of Android smartphones in the survey show that these two powerhouses form nothing short of a duopoly in smartphone purchases, in the U.S. RIM slipped to an all time low of 5% with all ofthers comprising the remaining 4%.

While Android is at the top and iOS is steadily coming up behind them, what does this leave for RIM, Nokia and Microsoft? Will they be able to survive the loss of so many new customers? Do they have something up their sleeves to turn things around or are we destined to witness their collapse in the cell phone industry? Which OS do you use and are you tempted to try anything else? If so, which ones?

Give us your thoughts below!

Source: Nielsen Survey

The race for the lead is on! Numbers are increasing consistently and Nielsen has the results spreading around the web like wildfires. According to November data from The Nielsen Company, the popularity of the Android OS among those who purchased a smartphone in the last six months (40%) makes it the leading OS among recent acquirers. This is the most recent recording available.

When it comes to overall consumer market share, according to Nielsen, Android OS (25.8%) is still behind Apple iOS (28.6%). RIM Blackberry’s position is (26.1%) putting it within the margin of error of both Apple iOS and Android. In other words, RIM remains statistically tied with both Apple for first and Android for third. Did you expect to hear that?

We can tell from these results that all three smartphone OS leaders – Apple iOS, RIM Blackberry and Android are benefitting from strong demand for smartphones. In November, 45 percent of recent acquirers chose a smartphone over a feature phone. Guess we can say the world is relying more on technology in phones these days. Would you agree? Let us know what you think about these results.

Source: BGR & Nielsen