Google's Android has become the best selling smartphone operating system in the three months ending January 2013.
According to data by Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, the Android has grown 6.4 percent compared to this time last year and has now totaled to 49.4 percent of U.S. smartphone sales.
Apple's mobile operating system - the iOS - finished in second place and not too far behind the Android. The iOS platform garnered 45.9 percent of smartphone sales, however, the number is down 4.7 percent compared to the same three months versus last year.
Microsoft's Windows Phone operating system saw an increase in their smartphone sales, up to 3.2 percent.
"Part of Android's increase in the latest period can be attributed to its large gain in share within Sprint's smartphone sales," said Kantar Worldpanel ComTech analyst Mary-Ann Parlato. "In the three month period ending October 2012, sales on Sprint were divided almost 50/50 between Android and iOS. However, in the latest period, Android's share of Sprint sales increased by 22.6 percent points from 49.3 percent to 71.9 percent."
Kantar noted Samsung's Galaxy S3 smartphone is leading the Android for Sprint. The Galaxy S3 accounted for 14 percent of the smartphones sold and 39 percent of the smartphones sold with AT&T. A price drop from $199 to $99 is attributed to the Samsung device's sales numbers.
Overall, Samsung smartphones represented 60.3 percent of the smartphones sold through Sprint, however, it was not enough to give the carrier a large sales growth. Spring saw gains of 0.8 percent year on year.
The Kantar statistics also show which U.S. carrier made the most smartphone sales. Verizon surpassed AT&T with 35.2 percent in the three months ending in January 2013. AT&T fell to second place with 28.2 percent of smartphone sales. Third place remains the same, with Sprint capturing 14.2 percent of the share.
Kantar Worldpanel ComTech USA, which touts itself as the largest continuous consumer research mobile phone panel of its kind in the world, acquired its data by conducting more than 240,000 interviews during the year in the U.S. alone.
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