NPD Confirms Android's Status as U.S. Smartphone OS Leader

From DailyTech: Earlier this week, market research firm Canalys reported that Google's Android OS is the top player in the U.S. smartphone market. Canalys' research indicated that Android OS commands 34 percent of the market, while RIM and Apple trail behind at 32 percent and 21.7 percent respectively.

Better known NPD Group released its own Q2 2010 numbers today and they closely mirror the Canalys numbers (with the exception of it showing a steeper decline for RIM). NPD indicates that Android OS, BlackBerry OS, and iOS have market share numbers of 33 percent, 28 percent, and 22 percent respectively.

Google of course was the big winner, but the report shows that RIM was the biggest loser -- the company lost 9 points of market share during the quarter.

"For the second consecutive quarter, Android handsets have shown strong but slowing sell-through market share gains among U.S. consumers," said Ross Rubin, executive director of industry analysis at NPD. "While the Google-developed OS took market share from RIM, Apple's iOS saw a small gain this quarter on the strength of the iPhone 4 launch."

Even though the Motorola Droid is practically an old man compared to the latest Android devices that have been released, it was the Android hardware sales leader for Q2. It was followed by the HTC Droid Incredible, HTC EVO 4G, HTC Hero, and HTC Droid Eris.

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