Android, iOS, BlackBerry tied for marketshare

Mark it. December 2010 was the month that BlackBerry's slow(ish) decline, Apple's consistent user base and Android's rapidly growing marketshare converges. A Nielsen Company report and blog post puts the three major player's share of the burgeoning smartphone market at about 27 per cent with Apple's iOS ekeing out a one point win with 28 per cent.

Nielsen's data for smartphone operating system share for US smartphone adopters in the past six months clearly demonstrates Android's growing uptake: From October 2009 to December 2010, Nielsen data shows a meteoric rise: from three per cent to 43 per cent share while Apple iPhone OS shrank from 36 to 26 per cent and BlackBerry feel 20 per cent from November 2009 to December 2010.

This on the tail of news that Android has surpassed Nokia's Symbian OS with Android installed on 33.3 million handsets, up from a mere 4.7 million just one year before while Symbian shipped on 31 million handsets, a 31 per cent rise on the year.