Samsung’s almost literally on top of the world when it comes to mobile phone sales, and apparently that’s with good reason. Researcher iGR stated in its latest news release that among US Android buyers, Samsung was the most proffered brand, followed by Motorola and HTC. Among the top three, Samsung is the only brand with a positive outcome from the last quarter – while all are selling well, Samsung is far and away the most profitable at the moment, both in the US and abroad.

According to research from late last year, iGR estimates that 47 percent of United States smartphone owners use Android, compared to 24 percent which use an iPhone. (Note that the iPhone is now available on three out of four of the largest carriers in the country.) Among Android users, almost half researched their purchase beforehand and specifically chose an Android phone, and 27% of Android owners chose Android specifically because of its association with Google. From the study: ” …27 percent of Android users said that they selected an Android smartphone because they believed that Google was a ‘reputable company’ and therefore inferred that Android must also be reputable.”

With Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S line selling 30 million phones worldwide and an extremely wide range of price points available, Samsung seems to be winning the Android market with sheer force. HTC, LG and Motorola, the other three major Android OEMs, have product lines that are comparatively thin and spread out across multiple US carriers. Just as an example: among the Android Community writers at CES, four Samsung Galaxy Nexus and one Galaxy S II could be found, with an AT&T Galaxy S II Skyrocket as a backup. The only other Android phone brought was a Verizon LG Revolution, also a backup device. It’s fair to say that Samsung is kicking butt and taking names as far ass Android goes – but they shouldn’t be cocky. The same could be said of Motorola in the fall of 2009, and of HTC in mid 2010. Who knows who’ll end up on top as 2012 plays out.