The Android operating system still reigns supreme with 47 percent of market share, according to comScore?s latest mobile report.

The comScore mobile subscriber report looked at how the smartphone market breaks down by device during the month of November. The study also looked at the most popular activities that consumers do on their mobile devices.

ComScore is a digital research firm that focuses on business analytics.

Divided devices
The study surveyed 30,000 consumers in the United States from August to November about their mobile habits.

Showing the growth in mobile usage, comScore claims that 234 million Americans above the age of 13 used their mobile devices in the three-month span of the study.

The study also showed an increase in smartphone penetration with 91.4 million consumers owning a smartphone, which is an increase of 8 percent from comScore?s previous report from May through July.

The study ranked the top five mobile manufacturers, three of which were Android-based.

Approximately 26 percent of consumers surveyed owned a Samsung mobile device, 21 percent owned a LG device and 14 percent of consumers said they had a Motorola smartphone.

Apple made up 11 percent of the study?s market share, which is up 1.4 percent from comScore?s previous study.

RIM claimed 7 percent of the market share, showing the manufacturer?s slow decrease in consumer usage.

The study also compared smartphones by mobile platform.

After Google?s 47 percent control, Apple claimed 29 percent of the platform market.

RIM placed third in the platform category with 17 percent and was followed by Microsoft with 5 percent and Symbian at 2 percent.

The low concentration of Microsoft smartphones shows how the company?s Windows Phone 7 did not live up to mobile expectations this year.

When Windows Phone 7 launched in 2009, it was predicted to be a game-changing device to the market with big implications for marketers.

However, Android and Apple still remain as leaders in the space.

Basic features
Despite the increase in smartphones, basic mobile channels such as SMS still prove to be most used by consumers, per comScore.

Seventy-three percent of consumers surveyed said they used their mobile devices to send text messages.

Mobile Web also proved to be popular among consumers with 44 percent of respondents surveyed saying that they used the mobile browser between the months of August and November.

The study also solidifies the connection between mobile and social with 33 percent of consumers accessing their social media accounts via mobile.

Applications are also commonly used by consumers with 45 percent of survey respondents saying that they used a downloaded app.

In particular, mobile game apps have traditionally been a widely-used category, but the comScore study found an interesting statistic on the app category.

Thirty percent of consumers surveyed said they played mobile games, which ranked it as the fifth most-used feature, which is different from several other big studies that claim that mobile gaming is one of the most popular mobile activities.

Final Take
Lauren Johnson is editorial assistant on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York