Market research ComScore just released its latest set of numbers on U.S. mobile phone usage and the results are intriguing.  They indicate that the Windows Phone 7 Series can't come fast enough, with Microsoft continuing to shed loads of market share, dropping since October 2009 from 19.7 percent to 15.7 percent.  Likewise, Palm appears to be in trouble, dipping from 7.8 percent to 5.7 percent.  

Apple and RIM managed to hold steady with small gains -- 0.3 percent for Apple and 1.7 percent for RIM.  However, the big winner was clearly Google's Android OS, which sailed up to 7.1 percent from a mere 2.8 percent in October '09.

The study covered the 234 million Americans ages 13 and older who are mobile subscribers.  According to the study, between November and January 42.7 million of these users had a smart phone, up 18 percent from the August through October period.

The survey show that mobile browsing, apps, and mobile social networking are all slowly on the rise.  Interestingly, mobile gaming only crept up 0.4 percent since last October, despite the iPhone's dominance in the mobile gaming market.

The study also found Motorola to be America's top handset maker, with LG in a close second.

The mobile market is sure to shift more by the end of the year, but its hard to see what direction it will shift in.  Apple is currently trying to kill Google's smartphone momentum by suing its handset makers for allegedly infringing on its mobile intellectual property.  By the end of the year we may get some hints as to how that will play out.

Meanwhile Microsoft prepares to release its Windows Phone 7 Series, which look very promising, and Apple gears up for its latest summer iPhone launch.  Ultimately, how those two platforms stack up hardware wise may determine who goes head to head with Google in terms of smart phone dominance.