comScore has released data from its MobiLens service, reporting key trends in the US mobile industry during the three month average period ending September 2010. The report ranks the leading mobile original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and smartphone operating system (OS) platforms in the US, according to their share of current mobile subscribers aged 13 and over, and reviews the most popular activities and content accessed via the subscriber’s primary mobile phone.

For the three month average period ending in September, 234m Americans aged 13 and over used mobile devices. Device manufacturer Samsung ranked as the top OEM with 23.5 per cent of US mobile subscribers, up 0.7 percentage points from the three month period ending in June. LG ranked second with 21.1 per cent share, followed by Motorola (18.4 per cent), RIM (9.3 per cent) and Nokia (7.4 per cent share). Among smartphone platforms, RIM led the way with 37.3 per cent market share.

58.7m people in the US owned smartphones during the period, up 15 per cent from the preceding three-month period. RIM was the leading mobile smartphone platform in the US, with 37.3 per cent share of US smartphone subscribers, followed by Apple with 24.3 per cent. Google continues to gain ground in the market, rising 6.5 percentage points to capture 21.4 per cent of smartphone subscribers. Microsoft accounted for 10 per cent, while Palm rounded out the top five with 4.2 per cent. Despite losing share to Google Android, most smartphone platforms continue to gain subscribers as the smartphone market overall continued to grow.

67 per cent of US mobile subscribers used text messaging on their mobile device in the period, up 1.4 percentage points compared to the previous three-month period, while browsers were used by 35.1 per cent of subscribers (up 2.2 percentage points). Subscribers who used downloaded applications comprised 33.1 per cent of the mobile audience, representing an increase of 2.5 percentage points. Accessing of social networking sites or blogs increased 1.8 percentage points, representing 23.2 per cent of mobile subscribers. Playing games represented 23.1 per cent of the mobile audience, up 0.5 percentage points, while listening to music increased 0.8 percentage points, representing 15.2 percent of subscribers.