iPhone Sales Jump 1.2% From February To May

So far, Apple's decision to begin selling an iPhone through Verizon Wireless appears to be paying off. Apple's share of the smartphone market soared 1.2 percent between February and May, according to data compiled by comScore, which follows trends in the U.S. mobile phone industry.

For the three month period ending in May, 234 million Americans ages 13 and older used mobile devices. Apple strengthened its position at number four with 8.7 percent share of mobile subscribers, up from 7.5 percent in February, when Verizon began selling the iPhone.

Prior to that time, the iPhone was available only on the AT&T network.

Samsung still leads

While Apple showed the most movement over the last three months, it has a lot of ground to cover before becoming the number one mobile phone on the market. Device manufacturer Samsung ranked as the top manufacturer with 24.8 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers, followed by LG with 21.1 percent share and Motorola with 15.1 percent share.

RIM, which makes the Blackberry, continued to lose marketshare, and is in fifth place with 8.1 percent of the market.

Android gains ground

As for mobile device platforms, Google's Android solidified its lead during the February to May period. According to comScore, 38.1 percent of mobile devices in use during that period run on the Android system, a 5.1 percent increase over February.

Apple's system was second with 26.6 percent of the market, an increase of 1.4 percent.

RIM was third with 24.7 percent marketshare, a loss of 4.2 percent of the market in just three months.

Microsoft was a distant fourth and still losing ground, at just 5.8 percent of the market.

In May, 69.5 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers used text messaging on their mobile device. Browsers were used by 39.8 percent of subscribers (up 1.5 percentage points), while downloaded applications were used by 38.6 percent (up 2.0 percentage points).

Accessing of social networking sites or blogs increased 1.8 percentage points to 28.6 percent of mobile subscribers. Game-playing was done by 26.9 percent of the mobile audience (up 2.3 percentage points), while 18.6 percent listened to music on their phones.