Android and iPhone Battle for "Most Desired" Smartphone

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Data broken down into several categories and represented by various graphical charts (including pie!); could it be any more exciting?

Neilsen has decided to throw iPhone, Android, and a handful of other smartphone platforms into the mix and watch them duke it out for the coveted title of Intergalactic Championship of the Universe. Or “Most Desired” smartphone, if that goes down easier.

Here’s what’s happening:

Current smartphone market share, overall, is at around 30 percent versus the standard, run-of-the-mill feature phones. Of those smartphones, BlackBerry and iPhone make up about 28 percent each, Android makes up about 23 percent, and the rest is divided up between the Microsoft, Symbian, Linux, and Palm platforms.

As for people getting ready to upgrade their phones, feature phone owners looking to get into a smartphone chose Android over iPhone 28 percent to 25 percent, respectively. Current smartphone owners planning to upgrade to another smartphone leaned harder toward the iPhone over Android at 35 percent to 28 percent, respectively. (More on Time.com: Apple’s Hits and Misses So Far)

When broken out by age group, just about every demographic trended toward the iPhone by a margin of between two and six percent except for the 35-54 age group, which slightly favored Android 27 percent to 26 percent.

And when it comes to the issue of gender, it appears that girls prefer fruit-themed phones 31 percent to 23 percent while boys prefer robot-themed phones 33 percent to 29 percent.

All the numbers aside, the trends indicate that iPhone and Android are just about neck and neck when it comes to desirability—perhaps with a very, very slight edge to Apple when the dust settles. (More on Time.com: A Practical Guide To Android [Update])

While BlackBerry continues to hold about the same market share as iPhone, its future’s not looking very bright. The iPhone and Android platforms are hovering between 25 and 35 percent on the desirability scale, while BlackBerry doesn’t manage to crack 15 percent in any of Nielsen’s datasets.

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