According to RIM vice president of developer relations Alec Saunders, the BlackBerry App World storefront is more profitable for devs that the competing Android Market owned and operated by rival Google.

Saunders revealed this week at the BlackBerry DevCon Europe conference that BlackBerry App World sees more than 6 million app downloads every 24 hours. Saunders alleges that App World now produces 43 percent more daily downloads per mobile app than Apple’s App Store.

More interesting to the developer community, however, is Saunder’s assertion that 13 percent of RIM’s developers earn $100,000 or more annually.

BlackBerry, which only controls roughly 16 percent of the total U.S. smartphone market as of late 2011, is struggling to not only retain customers but also developers.

By trumpeting the profitability of the BlackBerry App World store, perhaps the developer community will take a fresh look at the otherwise fading smartphone platform.

The study found that Google Android strengthened its lead in the smartphone market during the period to capture a 47.3 percent market share.

All told, 234 million Americans age 13 and older used mobile devices during the three-month period ending in December.

97.9 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the three months ending in December, representing 40 percent of all mobile subscribers.

Device manufacturer Samsung ranked as the top OEM with 25.3 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers, followed by LG with 20 percent share and Motorola with 13.3 percent share.

Apple, comScore found, continued to gain ground in the OEM market with 12.4 percent share of total mobile subscribers (up 2.2 percentage points), while RIM rounded out the top five with 6.7 percent share.

To check out the comScore MobiLens service for yourself, click here.

Polling data published this week shows that 36 percent of iPhone 4S buyers previously owned Android, BlackBerry, or Palm devices.

Shaken out, the numbers show that 50 percent of upgraders came from BlackBerry, 39 percent from an Android phone, and 10 percent from a Palm handset.

Although 43 percent of new iPhone 4S owners were upgrading from a previous generation of the iPhone, the strong number of platform jumpers impressed even the most optimistic of Apple supporters and market watchers.

“Apple sustained the strong demand at launch, and sold even more high-end models than before,” says CIRP co-founder Josh Lowitz. “iPhone started to take more sales from other smartphones, with 36 percent of buyers upgrading from an Android, Blackberry, or Palm, compared to 18 percent at launch.”

Later today, Apple will release its December quarter earnings.

If you’re an iPhone 4S owner, which devices did you upgrade from? Please weigh in with a thought or comment below.

Research in Motion co-founders Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie have voluntarily stepped down.

Both men served as co-chief executive officers and co-chairmen of the board. According to details made available late Sunday, the former executives will be replaced by previous Chief Operating Officer Thorsten Heins (new RIM CEO) and Barbara Stymiest (New independent RIM board chair).

“There comes a time in the growth of every successful company when the founders recognize the need to pass the baton to new leadership. Jim and I went to the Board and told them that we thought that time was now,” Lazaridis said in a statement to the press. “With BlackBerry 7 now out, PlayBook 2.0 shipping in February and BlackBerry 10 expected to ship later this year, the company is entering a new phase, and we felt it was time for a new leader to take it through that phase and beyond. Jim, the Board and I all agreed that leader should be Thorsten Heins.”

Externally, RIM has had no shortage of problems in advancing its products against strong competitors like Apple and Android in the smartphone space. But some have privately voiced their concern that RIM’s top leadership has been perhaps the biggest impediment to the company’s success.

Do you believe new leadership can revive the struggling BlakckBerry maker? Please weigh in with a thought or comment below.

Spearheaded by former Digital Media Association executive director Jon Potter, the Application Developers Alliance will officially launch next week at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The new organization is being hailed as a professional outfit charged with promoting the best interests of mobile developers. The effort will include raising greater education opportunities, providing cloud hosting services, and initiating government lobbying efforts.

As it stands, the Application Developers Alliance will heavily concentrate on iOS, Android, and RIM, although web developers are also being embraced with open arms.

Key services included as part of the alliance include:

• a collaboration network, via an online database
• product-testing facilities offering access to multiple platforms and tools
• discounted and free tutorials on trends and technologies, as well as structured training and certification programs
• discounted hosting and cloud services via Rackspace

“Our thought now is there’s an interesting space in the application developer community that isn’t really organized,” Potter says, according to InfoWorld, adding that recruiting is one of the first major goals of the organization.

“We’re going to be at the meetups all around the country, we’re going to be at conferences, we’re going to be talking to folks, we’re going to be polling people,” Potter reveals.

Are you surprised it’s taken so long for such an organization to form or is the industry still too young to warrant an elaborate industry association? Please weigh in with a thought or comment below.

For the three-month average period ending in November, 234 million Americans age 13 and older used mobile devices.

Incredibly, a record 91.4 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during that that timeframe, up 8 percent from the preceding three month period.

As always, the study surveyed more than 30,000 U.S. mobile subscribers.

Samsung continues to be the top handset manufacturer overall with 25.6 percent market share.

But Android devices once again steal the show, as they make up 46.9 percent of all smartphones across the United States.

Android saw a 3.1 percent increase in its market share since August 2011.

Interestingly enough, Apple’s iOS was the only other mobile platform to experience growth during the period, climbing 1.4 percentage points over August to secure 28.7 percent of the national smartphone segment.

To read the full report from comScore, click here.

On Wednesday it was announced that the new partnership will involve free pizza for anyone hanging out on New Year’s Eve in Times Square, New York City.

“Ready to load up on carbs before those resolutions start?” the team at LevelUp asks. “Noshing on $10 worth of free food on New Year’s — pizza, pasta, Stromboli, salads (if you’ve already started being good) and more — is as easy as paying with your phone.”

LevelUp is a mobile payment app that runs on the iPhone and Android, not to mention a mobile web app that works on BlackBerry and Windows Phones. The service makes it possible for users to register for their own personal QR code. They can then use it to pay – and, ostensibly, to save money – while patronizing local businesses. Instant digital receipts show what you spent and how much you saved.

“We’re really excited to be the first brand to adopt this innovative mobile payment solution that anyone can use,” said Peter Jurta, Vice President of Operations for Villa Enterprises. “We thought, what’s the most excellent way of ringing in the New Year for our customers? Free food for trying something new and awesome at America’s hottest spot for New Year’s celebration!”

If you’re planning to be in the Big Apple this weekend, stop by Villa FIK in Times Square at 263 West 42nd St. New York, NY to sign up for LevelUp and load up on $10 worth of free Italian food.

Following this surprising revelation, marketing and research firm Mediative put together a new whitepaper that takes a hard look at the mobile advertising ecosystem in Canada and uncovered some interesting stats and insight.  For example, Canada has a total of 20M residents that own cell phones, of which roughly 7.215M are smartphones.  With such low smartphone penetration, it’s easier to understand why only 5.2M actively use their devices for mobile browsing and apps.

What’s most interesting from the findings is how mobile ad impressions correlate to mobile platforms.  For example, Blackberry is the most popular platform with 42% market share, followed by Apple at 31% and Android at 12%.  However, Android garners the most mobile ad impressions at 47%, while Apple comes in second at 40% followed by Blackberry at just 13%.  In addition, the firm found the average CTR for mobile advertising in Canada to be around .5%.

For much more data, comparisons and case studies, download the full whitepaper here.

Like us, many have questioned whether this is even viable and have actually asked Google straight up.  Though the company wouldn’t officially comment, “multiple sources close to Google” said that Rovio is in fact the largest display ad publisher, but they were skeptical Rovio beat Google’s mobile search ad impressions.  Rovio’s Chief Marketing Officer Peter Vesterbacka said his company now serves over 10 billion mobile ad impressions each and every month.

When considering the insane numbers Rovio has divulged in relation to Angry Bird downloads — which now tops more than 500 million times in one form or another — it’s safe to say that its claims may actually be true, or will be soon enough.  What’s interesting is what Rovio has planned for its massive mobile reach in terms of mobile advertising.  Vesterbacka said the company plans to build a “whole new form of advertising from the ground up.”  As an example, he mentioned a recent campaign they created called ”Angry Birds Rio,” which was built as a promotion for the 20th Century Fox film Rio.  It was an advertisement that actually costs gamers a dollar, and users were willing to pay it in droves.

Though the company is tight lipped on exactly what it has planned, it should be interesting to see what they have in mind.  Vesterbacka said the company plans to “start 2012 off with a bang,” so we’ll have to see whether mobile advertising is a big part of that or not.  For more info on where Rovio is headed, it’s investment plans and more, check out this interview between Vesterbacka and the Business Insider posted earlier today.

According to mobile analytics firm Mobilewalla — Apple, Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7 have collectively hit 991,524 apps available in their stores, with the major 1 million app milestone set to be reached within the next week.  This is a significant milestone considering the modern mobile app ecosystem really only got its start in mid 2008.  Further still, the data leaves out apps from platforms such as Symbian, Palm and older Windows mobile apps that would inflate the total even further.  It’s also worth noting that while Android and iOS developers alone have created and submitted more than 1 million apps combined, many of them have been pulled overtime for one reason or another.

Breaking things down a bit further — Apple continues to dominate the market with 59.6 percent, rounding out at 591,428 apps while Android comes in second with 321,020 apps or 32.3 percent of the market according to data from Mobilewalla.  BlackBerry is currently boasting 43,544 apps, good for 4.4 percent of the total, while Windows Phone 7 has 35,248 apps or 3.5 percent.  It’s been reported that Apple’s developers are adding about 1,000 new apps a day while Android developers are uploading about 1,400 a day.

It’s safe to say that 2011 has once again been a breakout year for the mobile app market — just like every year prior for that matter — with the market more than doubling between January 1st and now.  We ended 2010 with roughly 484,000 apps according to Mobilewalla.  The top app categories across all platforms are Entertainment (16.68%), Games (13.36%), Lifestyle (8.02%) and Utilities (7.13%).