As of December 2011, the majority of U.S. people on mobile phone plans didn't use smartphones. As of March 2012, however, the majority of U.S. mobile phone subscribers - 50.4 percent - owned smartphones, up from 47.8 percent from December 2011, research firm Nielsen revealed.
As of Q1 2012, 50.9 percent of female mobile subscribers used smartphones, while 50.1 of men carried smartphones. More than two out of three people in the 25 to 34 age group owned a smartphone, while Asian Americans lead smartphone adoption with 67.3 percent using a smartphone as their primary mobile handset. Also, three in five Hispanic mobile subscribers use smartphones and the majority of African-Americans own smartphones.
Windows Mobile and Windows Phone take 4.1 and 1.7 percent respectively, while "Other" smartphones - probably webOS and Symbian - take 2.1 percent of usage.
In terms of smartphone OS share, 48.5 percent of smartphone owners during Q1 2012 owned an Android device. iOS was second with a 32 percent share, while BlackBerry devices took third place with 11.6 percent. Though while Apple is in second place, it remains the biggest single smartphone handset brand.
Carriers are offering incentives such as a 99-cent iPhone 3GS on AT&T with a two-year contract, a $99 Lumia 900 on AT&T while Android phones are available on every price point across all carriers.
Looking at U.S. smartphone usage by ethnicity, Asian Pacific/Islander users led the way at 67.3 percent. Hispanic users came second with 57.3 percent, while Black African/American owners were third with 54.4 percent. White owners had the lowest usage, at 44.7 percent. Flipping the results, white males had the most usage of feature phones - or "dumb phones" - at 55.3 percent while the Asian Pacific/Islander group accounted for only 32.7 percent of feature phone usage.
In terms of why the white smartphone usage percentage is the lowest, it could be because that group is buying phones when they launch and is being locked into two-year contracts so they are slower to upgrade.
