A new market survey by Nielson in the United States has shown Android drive ahead and gain 37% of the smartphone market share, a strong 10% margin over Apple and the iPhone which sits in second place at 27%. The figures show a significant change since the last Nielson survey, done in October that had the iPhone with the largest smartphone market share at 27.9% and BlackBerry in second place at 27.4%. Android has largely absorbed the 5.4% market share BlackBerry lost as well as the decreasing share of Symbian and older Windows Mobile devices to go from 22.7% in October to its 37% market share in March.

The survey also revealed that Android is now the most desired smartphone operating system for consumers, with 31.1% of consumers surveyed saying they would choose an Android phone compared with 30% who would go with an iPhone. In both the market share and desired operating system, Android is showing significant increases whilst Apple is seeing minor reductions compared to others such as BlackBerry or Symbian.

A final aspect of the survey was what recent smartphone acquisitions were and it reveals that 50% of all new smartphones purchased were running Android, whilst 25% were iPhones and 15% were BlackBerry phones. It is worth noting that this survey was solely focused on smartphones and as such did not include reference to the other iOS devices such as the iPod Touch or iPad. Jump the break for two more graphs.

[Via AllThingsD]