Smartphones are rapidly replacing feature phones in the pockets of Americans, and Google+Reader”>Nielsen’s new smartphone penetration survey reveals a few ket insights. You’re more likely to own a smartphone if you’re young or if you’re wealthy (especially both) and people that have bought mobile phones in the past few months are overwhelmingly choosing smartphones.

Smartphone ownership is about youth and income. Apparently, you have to have at least one of those things working in your favor in order to be compelled to purchase a smartphone.

Smartphone penetration is highest in people aged 25-34 making $100K+ a year. And across the board, with all age groups, money had a direct impact on whether or not the survey participants had a smartphone. The youngest subset of the survey (18-34) were more likely to have a smartphone even if they pulled in less than $15K a year – but once you got to the older groups, money became a requirement.

Check out Nielsen’s graph below:

Nielsen also reports that people who have recently made a mobile phone purchase are overwhelmingly choosing to buy a smartphone instead of a feature phone. Over all ago groups, 69% of those who bought a phone in the last 3 months bought a smartphone. It’s even more likely when you talk about folks aged 18-34. 8 out of 10 of them chose a smartphone over a feature phone.

As you can see above, Nielsen says that among all mobile phone users, 48% have a smartphone. This is up almost 10% from a few months ago, where they reported that 40% of mobile users had smartphones.