2011 was a good year for Apple’s mobile operating system.

According to the most recent data made available, last year ended with iOS having secured a 52% market share of mobile web browsing.

Net Market Share reported Monday that Android – Google’s popular mobile operating system – significantly trails iOS with regard to leading mobile devices used to browse the mobile web.

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According to new data out from comScore, the total number of Americans who own mobile devices now tops 234M, with 90M of which being smartphones.  The study covers the three-month average period ending October 2011, and includes a survey of more than 30,000 US mobile subscribers.

In terms of mobile OEM data, Samsung remains the top handset manufacturer overall with 25.5% total market share, followed by LG with 20.6% marketshare and Motorola with 13.6%.  In terms of mobile operating systems, Android holds on to the number one spot — now sitting at 46.3% total market share.  Apple comes in at second place with 28.1% of the market — up only one percentage point over the proceeding three-month period.  RIM rounded out the top three with 17.2% share, followed by Microsoft in fourth place with 5.4% and Symbian in fifth place with just 1.6%.

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While Google may be winning the battle in terms of getting the most devices out in the wild, it looks as though Apple’s iOS is still winning the war.

As part of the Senate Judiciary hearings today, former FTC official and new Google employee, Suzanne Michel, said that a full two-thirds of Google’s mobile search traffic comes from iOS devices, even though recent Android trends suggest otherwise.  She also detailed the fact that Microsoft, Yahoo and Google all bid to become the default search engine on future iOS devices — with Google obviously submitting the winning bid.

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Our friends over at Tatango have published their latest infographic.  This time the topic is smartphones and what activities mobile consumers engage with the most.

Smartphone penetration recently hit 40% in the U.S., and people are using them to their full abilities.  While downloading apps and browsing the Web seem to be the most popular, surprisingly, neither are at the top of the list.  This infographic was created using data from the Pew Research Centers Internet & American Life Project, who’s recent report detailed a wide range of data points for the mobile ecosystem — many of which have been covered here on MMW.

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Finland-based mobile analytics provider, CEM4Mobile Solutions, has published new survey results detailing consumer preference in regards to mobile apps vs. the mobile Web in terms of engagement, unique users and mobile ad impressions.

The company completed its research by using a sample of over 56 million mobile impressions from devices where both apps and mobile Web browsing were supported.  The results show that while the mobile Web sees more traffic and unique users as opposed to native apps, the engagement is much higher with native mobile apps.  In looking at the survey respondents, 90.15% of all unique users used the mobile Web, while just 9.85% used apps.  The sum of all visits was similar, with the mobile Web seeing 81.66% of all respondents while apps saw just 18.34%.

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According to the results of a first-ever survey on smartphone usage by the Pew Internet Project, it was found that 25 percent of respondents prefer to use their smartphones to access the Internet over traditional PCs.

The survey found that 35 percent of all U.S. adults own a smartphone, however looking at just mobile phone owners in the U.S., the number goes up to 42 percent.  Pew also found that 87 percent of smartphone owners go Online or get email and 68 percent do so daily.

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The US hasn’t always been known for leading the way when it comes to mobile technology, but when it comes to certain aspects of mobile marketing, the US is leading the way.

This morning, Bango released some interesting statistics regarding the growing usage of mobile-based Web browsing and mobile spending in general. The US has surpassed the UK for the number one spot in mobile Web browsing with 29% of the worldwide traffic. Interestingly, the growth in mobile traffic has coincided with a massive growth in mobile users paying for mobile-based content in the US as well. According to Bango, the US now accounts for 57% of mobile spending worldwide.

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