Back in Q4 of 2011 Apple jumped over Samsung and LG to become the best selling US brand, not very surprising as Apple delivers the iPhone 4S and the iPhone to Sprint in the same quarter enabling the iOS platform to capture 43% of the United States smartphone market, and jointly Apple and Android accounted for 90% of smartphone sales in the quarter with Android grabbing 48%.

However according to the NPD group, a leading market research company, based on data from their monthly smartphone track, Android smartphones performed better with first time smartphone purchasers with 57% of Q4 first time smartphone buyers opting to snap up an Android handset.

57% purchased an Android smartphone in Q4 compared to 34% purchasing an iPhone, which seems to indicate that first time smartphone buyers prefer Android to iPhone.

Overall smartphone sales continued to rise in Q4 hitting 68% of the total mobile phone market according to the report, which is an increase of some 18-percentage points since Q4 of 2010, and based on NPD’s monthly mobile phone track, the average smartphone selling price increase 8-bucks over the previous quarter and reaching $$143 in Q4 of 2011.

According to the report the top five best selling smartphones in the fourth quarter were the iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, Samsung Galaxy S2 and Samsung Galaxy S 4G.

Well at least the Android faithful now have something to shout about and that is that it suggest that Android is more attractive to first time smartphone buyers than Apple gear.

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