The Nielsen Company's newest smartphone data shows a three-way tie in OS market share, with Android's recent purchases the greatest, and the report shows higher rates of smartphone use by Asians, African-Americans, and Hispanics.
According to Nielsen, smartphone use is higher for minorities than other demographics of mobile consumers, with 31% total of mobile consumers owning smartphones or cell phones that have web-enabled operating systems.
Reporting on the percentages of mobile users who own smartphones, 45% of Asian/Pacific
Islanders, 45% of Hispanics, and 33% of African-Americans own smartphones, as compared to only 27% of Whites.
Although only 42 percent of Whites who purchased a mobile phone in the
past six months chose a smartphone over a feature phone, 60 percent of
Asians/Pacific Islanders, 56 percent of Hispanics, and 44 of African-Americans, who recently bought cell phones, chose smartphones.
What OS has the majority of the smartphone market? It's a three-way tie
now between Android, BlackBerry RIM, and iPhone iOS reported Nielsen.
However, analyzing the preferences of those who purchased a smartphone in the
past six months shows Android is clearly in the lead with 43 percent of recent acquirers
purchasing an Android device, as compared to 26 percent for Apple iOS and
20 percent for Blackberry RIM.
Apple's iOs is the favorite among U.S. smartphone owners who are
Asians/Pacific Islanders. Thirty-six percent of Asian/Pacific Islander
who own smartphones have iPhones. On the other hand, RIM Blackberry is
preferred by 31 percent of African-American smartphone owners.
This research finding, "Minorities use smartphone more than the white does" coincides with the survery result of KOBACO (Korea Broadcast Advertising Corporation), "Blue colors use wireless phone more often than any other segments such as Wh...ite color and student groups. As marketer, can we interpret above the survey result as follows? 2011 smartphone war will be fierece competition in high-end smart phone if there's no correlationship between income level and purchasing power and assume there's not so much price difference between high-end and mid/low-end phones due to mobile operator's subsidy?