Android has been a runaway success story for Google and the latest reports in from Comscore show that Android based phones are still taking a chunk out of the market share of competing devices. Statistics from America are staggering, with a 33 percent adoption figure, or in laymans terms … one in every 3 phones sold has Google Android installed.

RIM has been hit hard by the Google machine, dropping 4.1 percent market share between November 2010 and February 2011. The company still have a 28.9 percent hold on the US market however so its not all doom and gloom. Not yet anyway. Microsoft are struggling to hold market, dropping a further 1.3 percent to 7.7 percent in total. Palm have dropped another 1.1 percent to 2.8 percent total in February 2011.

Comscore also show a strong month for Apple in February with sales of  the iPhone 4 taking the top spot. Apple aren't getting hit too hard by the Android growth with the Verizon iPhone 4 doing particularly well.

Fred Wilson, venture capitalist and principal of Union Square Ventures said “I believe Android will be stronger in the developing world than it is in the developed world. And most of the growth in smartphones is going to come from the developing world in the next five to ten years.”

If this is true then we can see why Apple are proposing a low cost iPhone option to hit the masses this year. The current iPhone models are too expensive for many markets and it could hurt their market growth in specific countries.  It actually will be hard for them to compete against Google Android in these markets as they are entering into a territory with which they have very little expertise. Knowing Apple however it won't prove that difficult.

KitGuru says: It will be interesting to see how the market develops over the next year.

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