App downloading increasingly concentrated in iOS, Android smartphone markets

More than four in five smartphone app downloads during the past month were performed on either iPhones or Android-powered devices, market researcher Nielsen reported this week.

That means the total app downloads for those platforms during the studied period actually outpaced their combined dominance of the smartphone user base, according to Nielsen, which said that more than 71 percent of such devices in use in the U.S. were running iOS or Android.

From a manufacturing standpoint, Apple is not only the largest device maker in the American smartphone market, but the biggest OEM for cell phones in general in the country, the research firm stated. Despite this strong performance, iPhones are still slightly less common than Android devices in total smartphone market share. Google's platform runs on smartphones made by several major manufacturers, though the big three of Samsung, Motorola and HTC account for the lion's share of production.

Nielsen's figures highlight the extreme importance of IT service management's role in the rapidly growing enterprise mobility sector, as the ability to quickly download and run apps is potentially both an advantage and a drawback for the technology.