NPD says Android took Apple’s market share position in the States, RIM still leads

You read that right folks, with Apple’s dominance quarter after quarter, Google has managed to get it’s open OS into second place as far as U.S. phone market share goes. Of course this is all based on a “leading analyst” rather than official numbers, but they feel confident in the information they have found. So if you feel the same way about analyst that most of us do, don’t take these numbers too serious.

In quarter 1 of 2010 Android managed to get 28% of the U.S. smartphone market compared to the iPhone’s 21%. Of the 28%, Verizon accounts for 31%, T-Mobile 17%, and Sprint with 15%. AT&T hasn’t really been involved with Android too much. The Backflip is still brand new on AT&T’s network and it is not really any sort of flagship device like the Nexus One, Moto Droid, or Droid Incredible. At least until the release of Apple’s 4th Gen iPhone, we will continue to see Android take more market share. The Incredible is now out, the Nexus One can be purchased for AT&T, and the HTC EVO will be launching on Sprint very soon making Android quite a dominant force in quarter 2 even compared to quarter 1. Blackberry fans out there, don’t worry, your precious RIM managed to hold its own at a relatively unchanged 36% market share. Blackberry is still Number 1 here in the U.S. and with Blackberry OS 6 and some new hardware on the way, I can’t see this changing for a while either.

[Via Engadget]

[Full NPD Press release]