Android continues to hold the lead among all smartphone users, with 46.3 percent of all smartphone owners surveyed in Q42011 reporting they have an Android-based mobile phone.

As of Q42011, 46 percent of US mobile consumers had smartphones, and that figure is growing quickly. In fact, 60 percent of those who said they got a new device within the last three months chose a smartphone over a feature phone.

For more, check out Nielsen’s Mobile Media Report.

Combined with Apple’s other best-selling handsets, the iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS, Apple phones accounted for nearly two-thirds of all mentions about smartphones between July through December 2011. A handful of Android phones such as the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Droid Bionic, and HTC Evo series phones attracted substantial buzz leading up to the holiday shopping season, accounting for nearly a quarter of buzz.

BlackBerry models took in 10 percent of the buzz, led by the BlackBerry Bold series which was the third-most mentioned handset with over 6 percent of online buzz about these top smartphones.

Methodology: Using a list of the top 20 recently acquired smartphone handsets during the 3rd quarter, as well as a handful of recently released handsets such the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and Apple’s iPhone 4S, Nielsen looked at online buzz mentioning these smartphones from July – December 2011 posted in blogs, message boards/groups, public posts on Twitter and Facebook, and online news sites.

According to Nielsen’s latest data, 44 percent of all U.S. mobile subscribers now have smartphones. Among those who purchased a new mobile phone in the last three months, 56 percent chose smartphones. Android remains the leading smartphone operating system while Apple is the leading smartphone manufacturer.

Other groups show slightly lower penetration rates. Around 40 percent of 12-17 year-old teens and 40 percent of 45-54 year-olds reported owning a smartphone, as opposed to a more basic feature phone.

After younger adults, the segment with the second fastest-growing smartphone penetration rate is those aged 55-64. Smartphone penetration among this older group is only 30 percent, but it jumped 5 percent this quarter.

As the smartphone market continues to expand, Android remains the most popular smartphone operating system in the United States, with 43 percent of the market, while Apple is the top smartphone manufacturer, with 28 percent of smartphone consumers sporting an Apple iPhone.

According to an August survey, 43 percent of all smartphone owners have an Android device. But if you ask only those who got a new smartphone in the past three months what kind of phone they chose, more than half (56%) will tell you they picked an Android device. The preferences of these so-called “recent acquirers” are important as they are often a leading indicator of where the market is going.

Apple iOS remains popular in second place with 28 percent of all smartphone users, and the same percentage among those who recently got a new device. But those figures could change quickly in the months to come. Every time Apple launches a new iPhone or makes it available on a new wireless carrier, there is an increase in their sales.

Changes in share aside, the smartphone pie is getting bigger. While 43 percent of all mobile subscribers in the US had a smartphone as of August, 56 percent of those who got a new device in the last 3 months chose a smartphone over a feature phone. The holiday season and the launch of new devices like the next iPhone could further accelerate smartphone adoption, though this is always tempered by the fact that many consumers are unwilling or unable to break their service contracts before they expire. In any event, the growing popularity of app-and-media friendly smartphones spells tremendous opportunity for those advertisers, publishers and developers eager to leverage mobile media.

Forty percent of mobile consumers over 18 in the U.S. now have smartphones, according to July 2011 data from Nielsen. Android is the most popular operating system, with 40 percent of mobile consumers reporting they have a smartphone with an Android OS. Apple’s iOS is in second place, with 28 percent.

Among those who say they are likely to get a new smartphone in the next year, approximately one third say they want their next smartphone to be an iPhone and one third say they want an Android device. However, among those who say they are usually the first to embrace new technologies, “Innovators” or the earliest of early adopters, Android leads as the “Next Desired Operating System” – 40 percent for Android compared to 32 percent for iOS. (Survey respondents were asked several questions to determine their attitudes toward new technologies.)

Among likely smartphone upgraders, it is the “Late Adopters” who are most likely to say they are “not sure” which operating system they’d like in their next smartphone.  In politics as in smartphones, these “undecideds” will be the ones device makers will be hoping to win over.

• For related insights, join us for our free webinar, All About Android on September 15.

However, because Apple is the only company manufacturing smartphones with the iOS operating system, it is clearly the top smartphone manufacturer in the United States. Other leading manufacturers include HTC, whose Android phones represents 14 percent of the smartphone market and whose Windows Mobile/WP7 devices account for 6 percent of the market; and Motorola, whose Android devices are owned by 11 percent of smartphone consumers. Samsung’s Android devices are used by 8 percent of smartphone owners while their Windows Mobile/WP7 phones are used by 2 percent of smartphone owners.

The mobile Data Tsunami initially described here is still growing at an astounding pace. According to Nielsen’s monthly analysis of cellphone bills for 65,000+ lines, smartphone owners – especially those with iPhones and Android devices — are consuming more data than ever before on a per-user basis.  This has huge implications for carriers since the proportion of smartphone owners is also increasing dramatically.  (Currently, 37% of all mobile subscribers in the United States have smartphones.)

In just the last 12 months, the amount of data the average smartphone user consumes per month has grown by 89 percent from 230 Megabytes (MB) in Q1 2010 to 435 MB in Q1 2011. A look at the distribution of data consumption is even more shocking: data usage for the top 10 percent of smartphone users (90^th percentile) is up 109 percent while the top 1 percent (99^th percentile) has grown their usage by an astonishing 155 percent from 1.8GB in Q1 2010 to over 4.6GB in Q1 2011.

Growth in Smartphone data usage is clearly being driven by app-friendly operating systems like Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android. Consumers with iPhones and Android smartphones consume the most data: 582 MBs per month for the average Android owner and 492 MBs for the average iPhone user. Also of note, Windows Phone 7 users doubled their usage over the past two quarters, perhaps due to growth in the number of applications available.

Even as data usage has almost doubled, most users are paying around what they did a year ago for data. That translates to a lower cost per unit of data consumed.  The amount the average smartphone user pays per unit of data has dropped by nearly 50 percent in the last year, from 14 cents per megabyte (MB) to a mere 8 cents.

For additional perspectives on this data tsunami and the challenges it presents to wireless carriers, see related articles in Light Reading and The Street.

Hungry for Data
Consumers with Android and Apple iOS smartphones exhibit data-intensive usage:

• 74 percent of Android smartphone owners and 79 percent of iPhone owners report having downloaded apps in the past 30 days
• 43 percent of Android owners and 46 percent of iPhone owners say they streamed online music or mobile radio in the past 30 days
• 35 percent of Android smartphone consumers and 37 percent of iPhone owners report having watched video or mobile TV in the past 30 days

But while a higher proportion of iPhone owners engage in these kinds of activities, consumers with Android devices who engage in these activities consume more data on average.  An analysis of nearly 65,000 cellphone bills in the U.S. reveals that in the first quarter of 2011, Android smartphone owners consumed an average of 582 MB of data each month, compared to 492 MB for iPhone owners.

According to Nielsen’s latest survey of mobile app downloaders, that is, consumers who have downloaded an app in the past 30 days, if you want to understand the consumer landscape for mobile apps, you have to understand the Apple iOS and Google Android ecosystems.

• Thirty-six percent of U.S. mobile consumers now have smartphones
• Consumers with Apple iOS (iPhone) and Google Android OS mobile phones represent the majority of the smartphone market in the U.S. and 74 percent of mobile app downloaders
• App downloaders with Apple iOS and Android OS smartphones have more applications on their mobile phones than those with other kinds of smartphones, with an average of 48 apps on iPhones and 35 apps on Android phones. (By comparison, app downloaders with Blackberry RIM smartphones only had an average of 15 apps on their phones.)
• They also use their apps more often: 68 percent of app downloaders with iPhones and 60 percent of those with Android phones reported using their mobile apps multiple times a day compared to 45 percent of app downloaders with Blackberry/RIM phones.