Apple's share drops 14 percent in US as RIM and Android charge

It has to be said, the majority of Millennial Media's initial mobile mix reports – monthly insights on the US mobile market based on the firm's network – have portrayed an industry that's largely happy with the status quo.

May's report, however, suggests things are changing.

While iPhone sales are generally believed to be strong, the platform as a whole is losing fairly major market share to its rivals according to Millennial's numbers.

Indeed, Millennial claims iPhone's market leading share dropped by 14 percent month-on-month to 48 percent in May.

Back in March, Apple had an unassailable 70 percent share of the market, with its nearest competitor – RIM – 56 percentage points behind.

The latest figures suggest RIM – its own share rising by 3 percent to 19 percent in May – is now only 29 percentage points behind, with Android's share also up 5 percent to 15 percent in third spot.

It's unlikely Apple would be all too concerned about its share falling away at this stage, however, with reasoned analysis suggesting the growth of BlackBerry and Android is evidence of a fast expanding smartphone market as a whole, rather than iPhone falling out of favour.

Nonetheless, Google has much to celebrate according to Millennial's figures, with another component in the report suggesting Android owes much of its success to games development on the platform.

Millennial claims the majority of developers – 90 percent, in fact – opt to work on just one platform, rather than spreading their wares across multiple formats.

On this score, both iPhone and Android appear to be leading the charge, taking 56 percent and 29 percent of Millennial's developer usage statistics respectively.

It's a salient point, in truth, given the accusations laid at Apple's door ever since it changed its developer agreement to outlaw Flash development on iPhone.

The suggestion at the time was that Apple's stance would force developers into choosing just one platform to work on – preferably iPhone.

If Millennial's figures are to be believed, that's a situation that's already come to pass.

Millennial claims to enjoy one of the largest mobile media networks in the US, with the network reaching 82 percent of the mobile web according to Nelson.

You can download the report for free from the firm's website.