Android of Google Most Used Mobile Phone OS

Android of Google Most Used Mobile Phone OS



According to a study released Monday by comScore, Google's (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android surpassed Research In Motion's (NASDAQ:RIIM) Blackberry in January as the most-used mobile phone operating system in the United States.

Android, which entered the market in October of 2008, ran on 31.2% of all smart-phones, while 30.4% used Blackberry, which is down from 42% a year ago.

At the beginning of 2010, Android had only a 7% share of the U.S. market, in 4th place. It overtook Microsoft's (NASDAQ:MSFT) Windows Phone OS in June, Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) iOS in November, and finally overtook Blackberry this January.

The key for Android has been Google's open source business model; the company published the entire source code for other businesses to use, and licenses the mobile OS for free, allowing hardware manufacturers the ability to pre-load the software onto their phones instead of paying a team of engineers to develop a proprietary platform.

LG, HTC, Samsung, and Motorola, among others, have taken advantage of the Android opportunity. The ability to focus exclusively on hardware has allowed manufacturers to bring phones to market much more quickly than in the past.

Worldwide, Android still trails Nokia's Symbian OS in total users, but Nokia, which has been rapidly losing market share, announced recently it was ditching the Symbian OS in favor of Microsoft's Windows Phone OS.

Android now runs on more than 170 different kinds of mobile devices, with more than 350,000 activated every day.

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