iPhone Top Handset, But LG Top Brand

New data from Nielsen shows that the iPhone is the top phone among U.S. cell phones.  However, if one looks at market share in terms of manufacturers, not handsets, both RIM and LG top Apple, based on having several different handsets. In fact, the iPhone (i.e., Apple) has 4.0 percent, while RIM has 6.3 percent and LG 6.4 percent.

The data is for mobile phones in use from January to October 2009. The sheer quantity of handsets available for users leads to what is obviously very fragmented market share. The top 10 phones account for just over 20 percent of the total devices in use.

The Nielsen data also ranks the top sites visited by mobile devices. In that category, the top 3 sites are Google Search (no!), Yahoo! Mail, and Gmail.

What are the top brands visited by mobile devices? They are (surprisingly) Yahoo!, Google, and MSN / Windows Live / Bing.

Also ranked were the top video "channels" visited by mobile devices. At the top of the list is YouTube (naturally), with Fox Interactive Media and the Weather Channel (really!) next. One might wonder what might happen if Hulu could roll out its iPhone app.