The latest research has unveiled that Google Android now has a 50 per cent market share in the UK smartphone market.

The data reported by Kantar Worldpanel ComTech shows that Android has a 49.9% smartphone market share. The nearest competitor to Google is Blackberry with a 22.5 per cent market share followed closely by Apple with 18.5%.

This information shows just how popular Android has been and the data also shows that HTC  have accounted for 44 per cent of the Android phones sold in the last 12 weeks. In second place is Samsung whose Galaxy SII has improved their market share to 37.9%.

Sony Ericsson meanwhile has seen their Android share reduce from 20.5 per cent down to 8.5 per cent since last year.

It'll be interesting to see how Android fares over the next year with the new iPhone now available and Nokia launching their Windows Phones.

One thing that we can be sure of is that the smartphone market will continue to grow. The latest figures show that 43.8 per cent of people in the UK now own a smartphone. 3G wouldn't be surprised to see this figure near 60 per cent at the end of next year.