Microsoft, RIM and Nokia continue to lose out to Apple and Android rivals

Android and Samsung continue to lead the US market for smartphone usage, according to quarterly figures from monitoring firm, ComScore.

Out of the total of 234 million mobile phone users in the US, 97.9 million people now own a smartphone, the firm said.

The Android platform remains the most used mobile operating system, with nearly half (47.3 per cent) of US smartphone owners now using Google's OS. This was an increase of 2.2 per cent quarter-on-quarter.

The iOS operating system was in second place, with 29.6 per cent of the market share, partly thanks to the popularity of the iPad.

RIM's operating system continues to be the third most used in the US and still has a healthy gap to fourth-placed Microsoft. This despite the fact that market share of the BlackBerry platform dropped to 16 per cent during the last quarter.

Meanwhile, the Windows platform has a 4.7 per cent share of the market, a one per cent drop from the previous quarter.

Microsoft will hope that this decline will start to reverse when the Nokia Lumia 900, an LTE Windows Phone 7.5 device, is launched by AT&T in the coming months.

Meanwhile, Nokia's Symbian OS continued to struggle, with just 1.4 per cent of users.

In terms of handset usage, Samsung remained the leader in the mobile market, with a 25.3 per cent share. This has been largely due to the phenomenal success of its Galaxy range, in particular the Galaxy S II handset.

Fellow Korean manufacturer LG ranked second with a 20 per cent share and US manufacturer Motorola followed with 13.3 per cent of the market. LG and Motorola saw their shares dip by half a percentage point.

Despite ranking in fourth place, Apple was the only mobile device maker to gain market share in the last quarter. A total of 12.4 per cent of US mobile subscribers are now using the firm's iPhone and this is expected to continue growing.

RIM rounded out the top five with 6.7 per cent share of the market, a drop of 0.4 on the previous quarter. This is a trend that looks likely to continue for the forseeable future as the Canadian firm has pushed back the release of its BlackBerry 10 devices.