By Michael Oleaga / m.oleaga@latinospost.com (staff@latinospost.com) | First Posted: Sep 19, 2013 10:21 PM EDT

Google's Android platform has maintained its first place position against Apple in the smartphone mobile operating system market share across the United States (U.S.).

According to Nielsen, the smartphone market saw 15 percent of phone owners purchase a smartphone between the June and August months. The 15 percent increase gave the U.S. smartphone penetration percentage a boost to 64 percent.

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Among the 64 percent of smartphone owners, Google's Android was the top mobile operating system used. Android accounted for 53 percent of the market share, which comfortably defeated Apple by 13 percentage points.

Apple's iOS platform finished second with 40 percent. Despite the second place finish, iOS easily finished ahead of the remaining top five.

BlackBerry narrowly edged out Microsoft's Windows Phone with a one percent difference. BlackBerry placed third with three percent to Windows Phone's two percent.

Accounting for fifth place, Nielsen accounted it as "others."

The percentage points for the mobile operating systems are based on the three months of ending in August this year.

"So who owns smartphones now, and where are the opportunities for growth? Young adults aged 25-34 have the highest smartphone penetration at 81 percent, and teens aged 13-17 are catching up, as nearly 70 percent of this group now uses smartphones," noted Nielsen.

The report added that mobile phone owners age of 55 and older are in the minority of smartphone owners.

"In fact, 50 percent of the mobile subscribers using feature phones in the U.S. were those aged 55+, highlighting significant room for smartphone growth among this group of mobile users," Nielsen noted.

Nielsen studies consumers watching and buying habits in more than 100 countries.

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