Has Android become the long predicted "iPhone Killer"?

Ever since the launch of the iPhone, those who have not been able to embrace the device for one reason or another, have been searching for the iPhone "killer". A long list of manufacturers, carriers and phones have been designated the assassin of  Apple's touchscreen device dating back to the LG Voyager in 2007, and yet the iPhone has continued to prosper. But since the launch of the Motorola DROID last November, the Android platform has become not only a strong challenger to the iPhone, it is now taking business away from Apple in the States.

According to Millennial Media's monthly "Mobile Mix" (say that 10 times fast), Android has been picking up steam at the expense of the iPhone. The latest figures show that last month, Apple retained the top spot in the U.S. with a 48% share. That is a drop of 7% from July's reading and can you guess how many percentage points Android added in August? With the 7% share presumably grabbed from Apple, Google's open source OS now controls 26% of the U.S. market. If the current trend continues, in 4 to 6 months, Android will be looking down at Apple.

The importance of August's figures is that it shows that the earlier gains Android made this year were not due to people waiting on the sidelines for iPhone 4 to launch. In fact, Android has continued to pick up slices of the pie even after the release of Cupertino's latest phone. Millennial Media is a mobile ad agency and they say that ad requests on Android have increased 1,000% since January. Yes, some of this figure is bloated due to the large number of phones launched using the OS, but there seems to be no slow down in that department.

Which manufacturer has gained the most from the Android explosion? Motorola has leapfrogged over RIM to become the third largest cell phone producer in the States. Samsung and Apple are #1 and #2 respectively. On the list of the top 20 devices in the U.S., the first-gen DROID was number 2 with a 9.44% share, behind the iPhone. Five other Android phones made the top 20.

source: MillennialMedia