Half Of US Mobile Subscribers Have A Smartphone

According to new data from Nielsen, half of all mobile phone subscribers in the United States have a smartphone. Nielsen's data shows a significant growth in smartphone adoption over the past few years. Approximately one year ago, smartphone penetration was found to be at 36 percent. Recent data from Nielsen that was compiled through February 2012 suggests that smartphones now account for 49.7 percent of all mobile phones.

In addition to tracking overall smartphone market share, Nielsen also tracked mobile platforms. Over the past three months, Android has been the most popular platform, holding 48 percent of the market. iOS isn't far behind Android with 43 percent. BlackBerry held 5 percent and "other" operating systems had 3 percent of the market share.

If you consider all smartphone owners and not just recent buyers, you'll find that Android holds 48 percent of the market share but iOS has 32.1 percent. BlackBerry still has a footing among all smartphone owners with 11.6 percent of the total smartphone market. Other platforms have 8 percent of the total smartphone market.