New figures from comScore show Android produced an enormous leap in U.S. smartphone marketplace share via January...mainly in the expense of Windows Mobile.

Media and marketplace evaluation firm comScore has released its numbers for the U.S. mobile telephone marketplace from October 2009 via January 2010, and also the outcomes show Android creating an enormous leap within the smartphone marketplace, jumping from a two.8 percent share from the smartphone marketplace in October to 7.1 percent in January—that's a net point change of 4.3 percent relative to the whole marketplace, and a gain of over 150 percent compared to Android's share in October. And Android's gains seem to be coming largely in the expense of Microsoft's Windows Mobile platform: over the same period, Windows Mobile lost 4 percent from the total marketplace, dropping from 19.7 percent in October 2009 to 15.7 percent in January 2010.

Overall, comScore found the smartphone marketplace leader remains Canada's Research in Motion, which say the marketplace share of its BlackBerry platform rise from 41.3 percent to 43.0 percent, a net gain of 1.7 percent. Apple came in number two, with the iPhone nudging up from a 24.8 percent share in October to a 25.1 percent share in January. Microsoft and Android took third and fourth place, respectively; Palm came in fifth with a net decline of two.1 percent, dropping from a 7.8 share in October to a 5.7 percent share in January.

According to comScore, the U.S. smartphone marketplace stood at about 42.7 million people on average from November to January, an 18 percent increase over the average from August to October 2009.

Declines in Windows Mobile and Palm device marketplace share may have as much to do with product cycles as Android's popularity: Windows Mobile 6.5 has long been due for a refresh—which Microsoft is bringing this year with the not-backward-compatible Windows Telephone 7 Series—so users seeking a new device may be migrating to other platforms. Similarly, the decline in Palm's share could be attributable to users trading up older Palm Centro and Treo devices for newer smartphones. Nonetheless, if Windows Mobile and Palm users are trading in for new devices…it's clear they aren't all going for new smartphones running Windows Mobile or Palm OS.