According to the comScore statistics for August, Google's increasingly-popular Android operating system continued its ascent in the recent weeks, with its market share soaring nearly 7 percentage points during the month.

That the market share of the Android OS is rising steadily is further evident from the fact that comScore last month said that the OS grew its market share by 5 points to 17 percent in July; thereby ousting Microsoft as the third most popular mobile OS.

Going the latest data shared by comScore - which ranks the smartphone OS and OEM market by the number 13-years-and-older people who own the different handsets for a three-month moving average -, smartphones manufactured by Research in Motion (RIM) still led the market in August. But, with the Android OS gaining ground, the market share of the Apple iOS remained relatively flat.

In more specific terms, a comparison of the two three-month periods that ended May 10 and August 10 respectively shows that the share of the Android OS leaped 6.6 points to 19.6 percent.

Meanwhile, the share of RIM fell 4.1 percent to its 37.6 percent during the comparative periods; and that of Apple dropped 0.2 percentage points to 24.2 percent.

During the same period, Microsoft tumbles 2.4 percentage points to 10.8 percent; while Palm remained more or less steady, witnessing only a marginal fall from 4.6 percent to 4.8 percent of the OS market share.