Two out of three phones bought in US are smartphones

1 hr.

Devin Coldewey

According to a?Nielsen study?released Thursday,?two-thirds of phones bought in the U.S. during the last three months were smartphones. That may not come as a surprise to the millions of existing smartphone owners, but it's still a significant milestone.

In 2009, smartphones only made up 18 percent of mobiles bought. But late 2011 saw their numbers increasing, up to almost half. Now, just seven months later, it's up to two out of every three.

The study also noted a slight increase in the proportion of?Android phones among those being bought, making up 54.6 percent of smartphones, according to Nielsen's data. iPhones got a boost as well, up 2 points?to a total of 36.3 percent. Users seem to be fleeing the ailing BlackBerry platform, however: just 4 percent of phones bought in the last three months were BlackBerrys.

Mostly absent from the list are both Microsoft and Nokia; the companies' Lumia series of Windows Phone handsets achieved critical success, but have not been selling nearly as well as either company hoped.?(Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBCUniversal.)?New versions of Windows and Windows Phone are scheduled for later this year, however, which could help revivify the platform.

Devin Coldewey is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. His personal website is coldewey.cc.

Source: http://www.gadgetbox.msnbc.msn.com/technology/gadgetbox/two-out-three-phones-bought-us-are-smartphones-879330

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