A report from industry research firm comScore on Thursday showed that Google Inc.’s Android smartphone operating system is gaining on rivals. The latest data, from May, showed that Android had a 13 percent smartphone market share, up 4 percent from February data.
Android is supported by a variety of cell phone makers, including Samsung, LG, HTC, and Motorola. The gain came at the expense of other smartphone platforms—including Apple Inc.’s iPhone and Research In Motion Ltd.’s BlackBerry—which mostly lost market share during the period. But BlackBerry remains far and away the leader with a 42 percent market share.
Apple, which makes the popular iPhone, saw its market share dip slightly to 24.4 percent, but that number is expected to grow after the release of iPhone 4, which came to market on June 24 in the United States. According to Apple, the company sold 1.7 million units of the new phone three days after initial launch.