Smartphone market share increases rapidly worldwide, says AdMob

Despite challenging economic conditions, smartphones continued to gain significant market share worldwide over the past six months, rising from 26% to 33% of demand in February 2009, according to the mobile advertising marketplace AdMob.

The launch of the HTC Dream (G1) and BlackBerry Storm propelled increases in Android and RIM OS demand in the US. This growth was based on mobile web usage, not the number of handsets sold, and demonstrates the high consumer engagement with these touchscreen devices, said AdMob. The top handsets on AT&T and Sprint were also touchscreen devices, the iPhone and the Samsung Instinct.

AdMob notes the top-five smartphones worldwide in February 2009 were the iPhone, Nokia N70, BlackBerry 8300, Nokia N80, and Nokia N73. The top-five US smartphones were the iPhone, BlackBerry Curve, BlackBerry Pearl, Palm Centro, and HTC Dream. Symbian lost market share, but was still number one worldwide with 43% of requests, and iPhone OS is the top OS in the US with 50% share.