Motorola and HTC dominate Android platform

Apple maintains lion's share of the total market, however

The Motorola Droid has become the most popular Android handset

Motorola's Droid smartphone is currently the most popular of all Android handsets, according to a recent report.

Researchers at advertising firm AdMob said in the Mobile Metrics Report (PDF) that the Motorola handset was responsible for nearly one third of all Android traffic recorded in March.

Overall, the figures suggest that Motorola and HTC dominate the Android market with 83 per cent of total traffic.

The Droid's 32 per cent share far outpaced the second placed HTC Hero at 19 per cent, and the HTC Dream and Magic models each claimed 11 per cent. Motorola's Cliq rounded out the top five with a 10 per cent share.

Two Samsung devices, the Moment and Behold 2 models, claimed the next two spots on the list with a combined eight per cent, while Google's Nexus One continued to lag in the market with just two per cent.

Overall, the Droid (known as the Milestone in the UK) was a distant third among all handsets, claiming a four per cent share. The iPhone and iPod Touch lead the way with 22.2 and 14.7 per cent respectively.

Apple continued its dominance in the mobile browsing market, but saw its share of the total traffic load drop from 40 to 37 per cent in March. Nokia increased its share from 15 to 18 per cent, followed by Samsung with 10 per cent.

The iPhone remained particularly dominant in the UK, comprising 70 per cent of all smartphone traffic in March. Android claimed a 13 per cent share of the UK market, followed by Symbian with 11 per cent.