ComScore released data on the U.S. mobile market for the month of August 2011 and the results show that Android’s still growing and Apple basically stable.

New data from comScore for the U.S. market in August 2011 for Android continues its relentless march, reaching 43.7% of the smartphone market, mostly at the expense of RIM. Apple remains stable with a modest increase of 0.7%, understandable given the expectations for the presentation of the new iPhone.

Apple is also the fourth largest by sales in the U.S., grew by 1.1% and reaches 9.8% of the entire mobile market, behind Motorola and LG. Samsung is not surprisingly in first place, with 25.3% market share, up by half a percentage point. The other two biggies: LG takes a 21% share and Motorola with 14% share during the same period.

Microsoft and its mobile hardware partner Nokia captured 5.7 percent and 1.8 percent market share respectively.

From the mobile content usage point of view, text messages ranked high with 70 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers using text messaging on their mobile device.  This was followed by browser usage at 42.1 percent, and the use of downloaded applications at 41.6 percent. Access to social networking sites and blogs took up 30.9 percent, while game playing was done by 28.5 percent of mobile subscribers, and listening to music on a mobile phone touched 20.7 percent.

The data indicates the same trends already observed in the past several months: RIM continues its deep crisis, with Android ready to steal market share from the Canadian company, and Apple continues to grow, sometimes at a slower rate than Android.  The trend will be particularly interesting over the coming days as the new iPhone 4S, which will also be available at Sprint this year, might regain some of Apple’s market share.

Opportunity for Asian Mobile Techies to Catch Apple

Asian smartphone makers have a bright chance to exploit the letdown from trend maker Apple after the new iPhone 4S failed to wow Apple fans and investors, leaving most Android rivals better positioned to grab the US market share.  Most Apple fans hoped for a thinner, bigger screened design on the new iPhone 4S.

In fact, shares for all the mobile makers using Google’s Android operating system rose by one or two percent after Apple showcased the new iPhone 4S.  Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S II smartphone, which was announced in April as the successor to the Galaxy S, received great applause from fans as it contained both improvements in hardware as well as on design, which Apple failed with the revised iPhone 4S. Galaxy S II hit 10 million channel sales despite its availability for such a short period of time.

Nokia, still the leader in overall market share, is also planning to introduce its first Windows Phone at end of this year.  All these companies could now aggressively promote their flagship smartphones models ahead of Christmas, boosting sales during the shopping season.