On Tuesday, Neilsen Co. said that in the past 6 months the smartphones that are run by the Google's Android Operating System were the most popular smartphones among the US consumers. It has now gained pace and in the past 6 months, Android phones were the most sold ones ahead of Apple's iPhone and RIM's Blackberry in US.

Nelisen also said that, in the last 6 months, about 32% of the new smartphone buyers in US purchased Android smartphones, Blackberry smartphone buyers were about 26% and Apple Inc.'s iPhone buyers were about 25%.

Blackberry is still at the number one place and is the leader of the smartphones with an share of 31% of the smartphone market. But Blackberry has seen a fall of 5% from January 2010. In January, Blackberry was having a share of 36%. On the other hand Apple Inc.'s iPhone has remained steady. But Google's Android Operating System based smartphones has risen up to 19% which has seen a raise of 11% from January 2010.

Last month, Technology research firm Gartner said that, Google's Android OS will become the number 2 mobile operating system in the world by the end of the year. By 2014, Android OS and Nokia's Symbian will share a mobile OS sale of around 59.8%.

Now, Skype has announced that it is making an Online Communications service available for some of the Android based smartphones that includes Motorola and HTC devices. Users can download the Skype application for their smartphone from skype.com/m which will allow users to make free Skype-Skype calls & instant messaging.