Android Hits 39% Smartphone Share, iOS at 28%: Nielsen

Apple's iOS-based iPhone is still in second place, but rose to 28 percent from 27 percent in May and 26 percent in April.

While Android leads by dint of massive exposure across multiple OEMs selling handsets in the United States

and all over the world, Apple remains the top smartphone maker in the United States with that 28 percent share.

HTC is No. 2 with 20 percent in the United States, including 14 percent of Android phones and 6 percent of Windows Mobile/Windows Phone 7 gadgets.

Motorola is No. 3 with 11 percent of all Android phones. Samsung follows at a total of 10 percent U.S. share, with 8 percent of Android phone sales and 2 percent of Windows Mobile/WP7 sales.

In other Nielsen smartphone market share updates, Research In Motion's (NASDAQ:RIMM) BlackBerry continued to lose share for June, accounting for 20 percent share. That's down from 21 percent in May and 23 percent in April.

Smartphones based on Microsoft's Windows Mobile and Windows Phone 7 accounted for 9 percent of the U.S. market as the company continues its gradual transition of replacing Windows Mobile in favor of WP7.

The company just shipped its WP7 "Mango" version, which is well regarded by reviewers, to manufacturing. Mango phones will hit the market en masse this fall.

For now, though, the smartphone market features two faster horses at the top: Android and iOS. There are two forthcoming events that could shape the future market share of both platforms this fall.

First, Samsung is expected to launch its well-regarded Galaxy S II smartphones, which sold 5 million units in a few countries, through AT&T and Verizon Wireless in the United States this August.

Second, Apple is expected to launch its iPhone 5 in September or October. The device should be faster, feature better cameras and could feature a virtual assistant and facial recognition perks.

Samsung needs to have a good U.S. launch in order for Android to continue its momentum; Apple's iPhone must do the same for iOS.  

First Windows 'Mango' Phone Unveiled

The first smartphone based on the new "Mango" edition of Microsoft's Windows Phone platform was unveiled on Wednesday in Tokyo.

The phone is the first of several handsets due over the next few months, that Microsoft hopes will signal its

return to the smartphone market as a serious player. (Video of the new phone and its launch is available on YouTube.)

If that wish sounds familiar, it is. This time last year the company was hoping the first version of the Windows Phone 7 would accomplish the same thing. But that didn't happen.Despite getting several thousand applications and generally positive reviews, the new platform, which replaced Windows Mobile, was relegated to the sidelines by a rush of new Android devices and updates to Apple's iPhone.

Far from boosting its market share, the introduction of the new operating system saw Microsoft lose share.

Microsoft captured 2.7 percent of the smartphone market during the first quarter of 2011, according to IDC. But a year earlier during the first quarter of 2010, its market share was 7.1 percent, the market research company said. In terms of handsets shipped, those with Windows Phone 7 or Windows Mobile fell from 3.9 million to 2.8 million phones in the two periods."We've gone from very small to....very small," quipped Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer earlier this month on his company's lackluster performance.

Mango, officially Windows Phone 7.5, adds some 500 improvements to the Windows Phone 7 platform, according to the company. They include an e-mail "conversation view" that is said to make long e-mail discussions more efficient, a "threads" feature that brings together text, instant messages and Facebook chat, and Internet Explorer 9 for faster Web browsing.

"Mango is a substantial improvement bringing multi-tasking and other needed features," Al Hilwa, an analyst with IDC, wrote in an email. "This really begins to close the gap and in a couple of ways exceeds its competitors."

Some of those improvements can be seen in the new handset, the IS12T, which will be available in Japan only. Built by Fujitsu Toshiba Mobile Communications, the phone will be available in September or after. No price was disclosed.

The company is one of several partners Microsoft is working with on Mango handsets. Others include Taiwan's Acer and China's ZTE, but perhaps the most awaited phones will be from Nokia.

The Finnish cell phone maker threw its weight behind Windows Phone 7 earlier this year when it announced a wide ranging agreement with Microsoft to collaborate on future handsets and technologies.

Nokia is losing market share to aggressive competitors, but it remains one of the world's largest manufacturers of smart phones, so it has the potential to help Microsoft shift the market.

he launch of the phone came just hours after Microsoft signed off on the operating system and declared it ready to be installed in consumer handsets. That should mean additional phones will get launched in the coming weeks.

"Now everything rests on the diversity of the device portfolio that begins to emerge," said Hilwa.

Looking ahead, IDC predicts Windows-based smartphones will account for 20 percent of the market in 2015, making them second only to Android.

"Microsoft will claw its way to success and market share over the next couple of releases," the analyst said. "Its chances will be helped significantly with a successful Windows 8 release in 2012 which will create synergies between the PC and the phone in new ways."

For Japanese consumers, the IS12T phone has a 3.7-inch screen and a 13.2 megapixel camera. Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are included in the CDMA-based phone. It weighs 113 grams and Fujitsu Toshiba says the battery should provide more than 11 days on standby and more than 6 hours of talk time.

The phone has 32GB of memory and is waterproof with an IPX5 rating.

Windows Phone Mango Update: Android and iPhone Challenger?

Will Microsoft’s upcoming software update for its Windows Phones, codenamed “Mango,” affect the company’s smartphone prospects? Certainly Mango represents a substantial revamp of Microsoft’s mobile platform, which is struggling for adoption in the face competition from Google Android and Apple’s iPhone. In contrast to those platforms, which offer grid-like screens of individual apps, Windows Phone consolidates Web content and applications into a set of subject-specific Hubs, including “Office” and “People.” As Microsoft executives demonstrated for a small group of media and analysts during a May 24 press event in New York City, the new features include a redesigned Xbox Live Hub, home-screen tiles capable of displaying up-to-the-minute information such as instant messages and social-networking data, the ability to consolidate friends and colleagues into groups, and visual voicemail.

All in all, Microsoft is planning to add some 500 new elements to Windows Phone. Mango will be released sometime this fall. That’s some distance away for a company wrestling to hold onto its market-share. Although research firm Gartner estimated that Windows Phone sold 1.6 million units in the first quarter of 2011, recent data from comScore suggests that Microsoft’s share of the overall smartphone market continues to erode—a situation probably not helped by some well-publicized snafus with the first two Windows Phone software updates. Even if the pre-Mango Windows Phone continues a slide in market-share, Microsoft has managed to secure some long-term commitments from its manufacturing partners. “We have some Windows Mango phones,” HTC CEO Peter Chou reportedly told Reuters May 25. “We are very committed to Windows phone products.” However, he offered no guidance on when those new devices might appear. Analysts generally view Microsoft’s deal with Nokia, which will see Windows Phone ported onto the latter’s smartphones, as a chance for the Windows Phone platform to gain some additional momentum—at least overseas, where Nokia continues to maintain a strong presence despite challenges from Android and iOS. In addition to HTC and Nokia, Samsung and LG Electronics have apparently committed to building new Windows Phone devices preloaded with Mango. Acer, Fujitsu and ZTE are also planning to produce Windows Phone devices for the first time. In other words, Windows Phone isn’t exactly in danger of dying within the next couple of months—especially since it represents an all-or-nothing bet by Microsoft in the increasingly important mobile space. The question is whether a Mango-enhanced Windows Phone can draw users who haven’t already gravitated towards Microsoft’s offering. Here the question becomes more problematic. Certainly a more robust smartphone platform helps spark increased adoption—for an example of that, look no further than Android, which has seen its market-share increase with each successive version. But all the new gizmos in the world won’t help a platform that people don’t inherently find attractive or useful in their daily lives. For enterprise users, Mango offers some key additions, including the ability to search a server for email items no longer stored to a device, and share and save Office documents via Office 365 and Windows SkyDrive. That could help drive Microsoft’s share among business users. For consumers, the revamped Xbox Live and features like multitasking could make Windows Phone a more enticing prospect. Mango also introduces unique applications like Local Scout, which offers a view of everything to see and do in a particular neighborhood, and an enhanced “People” Hub that includes Twitter feeds. Despite all those new features, Windows Phone has one weak spot: number of apps available for download. In contrast to Apple’s App Store and Google’s Android Marketplace, which respectively boast hundreds of thousands of apps, Windows Phone’s online storefront boasts only a few thousand. While Microsoft executives argue that the apps’ quality eclipses the need for quantity, the fact remains that smartphone platforms with thriving ecosystems—i.e., Apple and Google—have seen their market-share only increase, while those with comparatively few apps—Palm and Research In Motion come to mind—have seen their device adoption rates soften over several quarters. Microsoft continues to push developers to build apps for Windows Phone. And Mango will be a giant step forward in the company’s attempts to offer a smartphone platform on par with Android and the iPhone. The question is whether those app-developer efforts—and Mango’s new features—will give Microsoft the momentum it needs to take Windows Phone from an also-ran to a major contender.