According to the latest Nielsen report by Roger Entner, senior Senior Vice President, Research and Insights, Telecom Practice, smartphones will outsell feature phones in 2011 in the U.S.

It has been found that 21 percent of U.S. subscribers were using a smartphone in Q4 2009, up from 19 percent the quarter before and from 14 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008. 45 percent of those that participated in a Nielsen survey said that they would purchase a smartphone next.

Nielsen predicts that the U.S. smartphone market will overtake the feature phone market around the third quarter of 2011, and the analyics company attributes the growth to the falling prices and increasing capabilities of smartphones, paired with the large application market.

In addition, the study also found that 77 percent of smartphone buyers stuck with their wireless carrier, but 18.3 percent jumped ship to another carrier. The remaining 4.5 percent were new smartphone buyers.