HALF OF ALL BRITS OWN A SMARTPHONE

Nearly half of Brits  are smartphone owners, according to a new Kantar study , even without the figures we all know that Brits love their Smartphones. But what's up and coming and what Smartphone has had its day, this article explores...

British Smartphone Ownership doubles in a year!

Smartphone makers, from HTC to Samsung to Apple, which of course is a serious hint at how popular smartphones are becoming, a new study from Kantar Worldpanel Comtech adds to this confirmation. In the report, Kantar found that 43.8 percent of Brits now own a smartphone, which is around twice the percentage from a year ago. In addition, it found that smartphones made up 70% of all mobile phone sales in Britain over the past year.

Just Look Around

Everybody's Using their phone on Britain's High Streets

Any five minute walk down your typical UK Highstreet with your eyes open will confirm these figures with random observation of those around you most of who will undoubtedly be engrossed in making calls, texting,listening to music, taking photographs or playing Angry Birds on their Smartphones! Not surprising then that  in August of 2011, a report from Ofcom  confirmed that over half of British teens own a smartphone, 60% of which were actually ‘addicted’ to it. While the findings from the Kantar study are hardly unexpected, they do reinforce the notion that the UK is smartphone barmy and becoming more crazily addicted by the day!

Android the Most Popular

The study also gave us insights into the most popular OS and handset manufacturers .The results are  predictable: Android came out on top, with 49.9 percent of the smartphone market, whilst Blackberry's  RIM trailed in second at 22.5 percent and Apple came in third with 18.5 percent.

According to new data from Nielsen, Android retains its crown in the USA too, as the most-used smartphone OS the last quarter of 2011. Google’s mobile OS now accounts for 43% of U.S. smartphones,  a full rise in 4 % from Android's 39 % market share in July. Apple’s iOS, on the other hand, has remained  at 28% this whole time, putting it at a far second.

Despite their lacklustre performance on the OS side ,Apple are still the champs with Handset ownership with a full 28% of consumers owning some version of iPhone.

HTC Android phones most popular

Android's strength (and weakness) has always been it's fragmentation  and not being tied to one handset. HTC  came out on top, with 45% of the Android market-the HTC Desire and future iterations being ever popular, whilst Samsung followed closely with 38%. Sony Ericsson,  fell even further to only 8.5 percent of the Android market, a disturbing fact for me personally as I do love my Xperia Play.

Poor Nokia

Once the dominant force in phones, who can forget the legendary Nokia's and the irresistible "Snake" game? However the legend is no more as Nokia’s Symbian OS phones accounted for only 6% of the market, a massive drop from their 20 percent market share the year before. 

Are you a smartphone owner?

As Smartphones continue to dominate the headlines and our gadget buying needs the report doesn't really come as a surprise. So the question remains not: "Do you have a smartphone?" but, " What Smartphone do you have ?" Please comment below and let's see amongst our readers really who is more popular.