Nielsen: As of February, Smartphones Account for Half of US Mobile Phones

Nielsen Mobile Insights’ latest statistics are in — and would you look at that. It’s the rise of smartphone owners crossing paths with the decline of those still clinging to their feature-focused devices. According to its latest Smartphone Penetration report, through February 2012, 49.7 percent of US mobile phone owners now sport the “smarter” types (up from only 36 percent a year ago). On a unsurprising note, Nielsen also found that two-thirds of mobile phone buyers in the last three months purchased smartphones over dumbphones.