Motorola was the top handset manufacturer with a market share of 22.3% while Research in Motion (RIM ) led smartphone platforms with 42.1% market share in the US in February 2010, according to data released by comScore.

The firm’s data between November 2009 and February 2010, shows that Motorola was followed by LG with a market share of 21.7%, Samsung with 21.4%, Nokia with 8.7% share and RIM with 8.2% market share.

However, Motorola’s market share was down by 1.9 percentage points to 22.3% from 24.2% between November 2009 and February 2010. During the same period, RIM gained a market share of 1.7 percentage points, Samsung gained by 0.4, while Nokia fell by 0.6 percentage points.

RIM was the leading mobile smartphone operating system in the US with 42.1% market share of US smartphone subscribers, rising 1.3 percentage points versus the prior period. Apple gained the second spot with 25.4% market share, followed by Microsoft with 15.1% share, Google with 9% share, and Palm with 5.4% share.

Google’s Android platform continues to see rapid gains in market share with an increase of 5.2 percentage points, as more Android-compatible devices are introduced to the market, the firm said.

According to comScore, in an average month during December through February 2010 time period, 64% of US mobile subscribers used text messaging on their mobile device, up 1.9 percentage points from three months prior. Browsers were used by 29.4% of US mobile subscribers, up 2.4 percentage points, while subscribers who used downloaded applications made up 27.5%.

In addition, the firm found that 18% of mobile subscribers accessed social networking site or blog, an increase of 2.9 percentage points from 15.1% for three months ended November 2009.