Verizon iPhone Most Popular Cell Phone in Feb., but Android Still Surges: comScore

A new report from comScore citing the state of the U.S. mobile phone market at the end of February, 2011 showed that the Verizon iPhone was the most popular cell phone model (not just smartphone model) in February. That enabled Apple's market share to rise slightly from Nov. 2010's report to Feb. 2011 report.

Despite that, however, the report showed that Android's market share surge was unabated, as its market share rose 7 percent to 33 percent or one-third of the U.S. smartphone market. Meanwhile, Apple's share rose slightly, to 25.2 percent. It was 25.0 percent in November.

Android continued to take share out of all the other platforms. RIM was hurt the most; it saw its share drop 4.6 percent, falling below 30 percent for the first time, to 28.9 percent. Windows Phone 7 did not forestall Microsoft's declining fortunes, as its market share dropped from 9 percent to 7.7 percent. HP dropped from 3.9 percent to 2.8 percent.

As opposed to platforms, when one looks at mobile OEMs, since Android is split across many OEMs, there's little way for a single Android manufacturer to stem the tide of the iPhone and Apple in overall cell phone manufacturing share.

Among OEMs, Apple was up nearly a full point to 7.5 percent, nearing RIM, which dropped slightly to 8.6 percent. Top OEM Samsung gained market share to hold on to the lead at 24.8 percent; LG was flat; Motorola dropped nearly 1 percent to 16.1 percent, as its feature phones too much for Motorola's smartphones to make up for.