Nielsen: 2 out of 3 U.S. mobile buyers opt for smartphones

Surprising no one, the latest statistics from Nielsen prove that smartphone purchases aren’t slowing down anytime soon.

Among new mobile buyers in the U.S., two-thirds chose a smartphone over a feature phone in the last three months, the research firm found. That’s a fairly significant jump from around this time last year, when Nielsen noted that smartphones finally overtook feature phones among new buyers.

In terms of other smartphone figures, not much has changed. Nielsen found that 54.9 percent of mobile customers now own smartphones (as of June 2012), and Android still holds a commanding lead of 51.8 percent over the iPhone’s 34.3 percent. That likely won’t change anytime soon, as the release of new Android handsets like the Samsung Galaxy S III and HTC One series will keep Android sales strong (and we don’t expect to see the next iPhone until this fall).

Nielsen’s data also shows that Windows Phone 7 still has a pitifully small market share of around 1.3 percent. Given Microsoft’s recent announcement that existing Windows Phone devices won’t get upgraded to Windows Phone 8, I have a feeling that many potential buyers will be holding off on getting a new Windows Phone handset.

Among smartphone manufacturer market share, Apple still leads, with 34 percent, followed by Samsung’s 17 percent share and HTC’s 14 percent.