comScore January 2010 U.S. mobile industry survey

Here is the summary of Smart phone marketshare stats, as prepared by the Equity Research team at Genuity Capital Markets:

The study surveys approximately 30,000 users (older than 13) every month asking them what device they use and applications. Key highlights:

– Smartphone market still has plenty of room to grow in the U.S. – While we talk about the smartphone market all the time, it still has plenty of opportunity to grow in the most advanced smartphone market in the world. At the end of January, smartphones users represented 18% of the total U.S. user base.

– RIM gains share – RIM’s US market share is 7.8%, up from 6.4% at the end of October. While that is lower than our estimate of just under 10%, it does show that RIM still has plenty of room to grow even in its most penetrated market. On a smartphone basis, RIM’s market share increased by 1.7% to 43% or 18.4 million users.

– Apple is flat – Apple did see its market share increase however it was less than RIM. iPhone share increased by 0.3% to 25.1%.

– Android is the big winner – Android was the biggest gainer as its market share jumped from 2.8% to 7.1% (or 6 million users) as Verizon started promoting the Motorola Droid and HTC Eris. We believe Motorola Droid/Cliq represent 1/3rd of the users. The rest we believe is primarily is T-Mobile G1 and MyTouch.

– Microsoft is the big loser – Microsoft not surprisingly was the biggest loser as its market share fell to 15.7% from 19.7%. That said, we are stunned that Microsoft has nearly 16% of the market! That’s why Microsoft is pushing Windows Mobile 7 so aggressively as they want to reduce the churn within their current user base, on top of growing their share.

– Mobile application usage is rising including texting – Not surprisingly, all forms of mobile content usage/consumption is rising with access social networking being the biggest (up 3.3%). Mobile browsing was up 1.8%, while texting and app downloads were up 1.5%.

– Old guard still has lots of share (~75%): Opportunity for smartphone players – While the market is quickly transitioning to smartphones, the “old guard” – Motorola, LG, Samsung and Nokia – still have big chunks of the current market. Motorola users represent 22.9% of U.S. mobile market (or 53.6 million), LG 21.7% (50.8 million), Samsung 21.1% (49.4 million) and Nokia 9.1% (21.3 million). We believe the Nokia user base is mostly pre-paid, but the number is higher than we would have figured. These four companies have 75% of the market.

Good news for the folks from Waterloo!

MRM