ComScore: Android's market share reached 48.6% in January 2012

ComScore surveys 30,000 mobile users every month, and in the January 2012 results, Android and iOS were on the rise, while RIM and Microsoft were declining.

Among the world's top mobile phone manufacturers, Samsung Electronics has the highest share, accounting for 25.4%, only 0.1% lower than the previous quarter. LG ranked second with a market share of 19.7%, but it fell almost a full percentage point, thanks to its traditional feature phones. Meanwhile, Apple, which ranked fourth, saw its market share rise from 10.8% to 12.8%, no doubt due to the iPhone 4S.

In terms of market share of different platforms, Android and iOS still rank first and second respectively, and both have made progress. Android's share increased by 2.3%, accounting for almost half of the entire market, reaching 48.6%, while iOS has also jumped to 29.5%.

In comparison, RIM and Microsoft continued to decline, with the former falling by two percentage points to 15.2%. Despite Microsoft's heavy investment in Windows Phone, it still lost out, with a 1% drop to a total market share of 4.4%.

What's more interesting is that Nokia announced that it would start to launch low-end smartphones in the United States, such as the Nokia Lumia 900, which is rumored to be priced at only $100 on AT&T, making it more difficult for Microsoft to reverse the situation. RIM will not launch the BlackBerry 10 smartphone until the end of the year.