With the Google phone NEXUS arriving also in the UK to very good reviews, here a snapshot update (from various sources) on the rapid growth of the Android smartphone market.

Yes iPhone remains leader for "apps", but our bet is that Andriod-system devices will soon surpass its market share.

Some indicators:

• Rapid growth: Worldwide requests from Android devices increased 97% from October to December
• Increased manufacturer diversity: In October, 98% of requests came from HTC devices. In December, 56% of requests were from HTC devices, 39% from Motorola devices, and 5% from Samsung.
• Increased device diversity: In December, 7 devices generated more than 3% of requests each: the Motorola Droid, HTC Dream, HTC Magic, HTC Hero, Motorola CLIQ, HTC Droid Eris, and the Samsung Moment. This is up from only 3 devices in October (HTC Dream, HTC Magic, and HTC Hero).
• Droid Invasion: The Motorola Droid is already the leading Android handset and has generated 30% of ad network requests.
• US leads Android adoption: 90% of Android traffic was in the US in December, up from 84% in October. Top countries by requests are the US, UK, Germany, France, and Canada, respectively.
• Android traffic has grown dramatically over the last year in North America and Western Europe. In the fourth quarter of 2008, traffic from Android devices represented only 1% of overall smartphone traffic, compared to 16% in the fourth quarter of 2009.