Holiday Gift Guide »

iPhone wins US popularity contest in 2009!

By: , IntoMobile
Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009 at 2:31 PM

iphone-popularityAs the 2009 calendar year draws to a close, we look back at a year that was defined by smartphones and the iPhone’s arch nemesis, the Android OS. But, that  doesn’t mean the iPhone has dropped of Americans’ radars. In fact, a new study from Nielson crowns the iPhone as the most popular mobile phone in the US for almost all of 2009. Based on Nielson’s numbers, Apple’s iPhone was being used by 4% of wireless subscribers from January through October of this year, followed closely by RIM’s BlackBerry Curve 8300 lineup, which were used by 3.7% of people with cellphones.

Surprisingly, Motorola’s legacy lives on in its RAZR V3 lineup. After pumping out millions of RAZRs while their design team seemed to sit idly by, Motorola has left a lasting mark on the US wireless ecosystem. To this day, 2.3% of mobile phone users had a RAZR V3 variant in their pockets.

The study also found that people who chose to go the pre-paid route tended to do so because the plans were more straightforward, that 21% of US households used only cellphones, and that 15% of households now had at least one smartphone.

Now, before you go off about how great the iPhone is and how it just makes sense that it’s the most popular phone of 2009, consider this: if you clump together all of RIM’s BlackBerry phones into one massive category, they would easily eclipse the iPhone’s market share.  But, then again, that’s not going to stop the hype machine from backing the iPhone, so why should you?

[Via: AppleInsider]

About The Author

Will Park

Will hails from The City of Angels - Los Angeles, California. He spends his time playing with his numerous gadgets and looking forward to seeing what future holds for mobile technology. An avid promoter of a fully "digital" life, he promotes the widespread adoption of truly mobile, paper-less living. He dreams of the day when he can go completely digital. No more snail mail, paper receipts, bound books, notepads/spiral notebooks, credit cards, hard currency. He's a digital warrior - fighting for the converged life. He is an idealist and a realist - he has a perfect view of what the world should be but knows that the world is not perfect. Can we ever hope to see Will's dream become reality? We'll see...

  • Brendan

    Looking forward to see what the RAZR people start deciding to go with for their new phone…. My guess is that they’re all waiting to see who is going to win that new contract with Apple.

  • Kevin

    Also, you can lump together the LG phones for a large percentage.

    For that matter, a single Windows Mobile phone can’t show up because there are so many of them… but take all 7.13 million current US WinMo users, and their phones add up to 2.6% on a chart like this. That’s not bad compared to the others.

    But of course, everyone knows that unless you manipulate the results to put the iPhone on top, no one reads a “report”.