iPhone -- Cool, But Outta School? (AAPL, GOOG, RIMM, HP, MSFT, T)

Smartphone adoption in the US market has reached 35% of US adult mobile phone users, and 42% of all mobile phone owners. In Europe’s five leading markets (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK), smartphone adoption grew by 44% year-over-year in July. Smartphones are taking over, feature phones are disappearing, and the iPhone from Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) may be losing is cachet among the young and the restless.

A study by the Pew Research Center of US smartphone users reveals some interesting tidbits.  Among smartphone owners, 35% use devices running the Android operating system from Google Inc. (NYSE: GOOG), 24% use iPhones running iOS, 24% use Blackberry devices from Research in Motion Ltd. (NASDAQ: RIMM), 6% use WebOS devices from Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ), and 4% use a Windows platform from Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT).

One of the interesting tidbits from the Pew research is that young adults aged 18-24 own more than twice as many Android-powered phones as they do iPhones. And while the gap narrows as the age cohorts get older, it isn’t until the 55-64 year old group that iPhone owners outnumber Android owners — and then by just 1%. In the 35-44 year-old age group, Blackberry phones also outnumber iPhones

By ethnicity, 12% of whites own Android phones compared with 10% who own iPhones. Among blacks, 26% own Android phones compared with just 5% who own iPhones and 12% who own Blackberries. Among Hispanics, 16% own Android phones, 10% own iPhones and 14% own Blackberries.

Apple gets most of the notice in the smartphone market, but Android is getting most of the sales. And that’s especially true among the young. Why is Apple losing among the young and the cool?

One reason could be selection. Android-powered phones come with a wider variety of models and price points than do either iPhones or Blackberries. iPhones are considerably more expensive than Android phones, so parents purchasing a phone for their college-age students may go for the cheaper Android phones.

Besides, the initial buyers of the iPhone were most likely the parents of the 18-24 year olds. How cool is it to own the same phone as your stodgy old parents?

There’s also the possibility that Apple’s early decision to stay with just one vendor, AT&T (NYSE: T), is coming back to haunt it. Couple that with the company’s high markup and nearly total control of the iPhone’s ecosystem, and we might be seeing the start of a replay of the Mac-PC wars of the last century. That war almost killed Apple.

Can the iPhone get its groove back? Apple probably needs to introduce a price-competitive phone with all the features that are available on a similarly priced Android phone. Re-establishing its cool factor among the young will be harder, and could involve loosening the company’s grip on the iPhone ecosystem.

Neither of these is something that the folks in Cupertino are likely to do unless forced. The Pew report, though, ought to give Apple a push.

Paul Ausick