Q3 Surprise: iPhone Outsells BlackBerry

Uh-oh. Big trouble for Research in Motion Ltd.? It turns out that Apple Inc. sold more iPhones in the third quarter than domestic smartphone market leader RIM moved BlackBerries of all stripes.

Apple sold about 6.9 million units of the 3G iPhone worldwide in the third quarter, versus 6.1 million BlackBerries, according to U.K.-based research firm Canalys, which echoed comments from Steve Jobs as to the milestone. Canalys puts Apple’s worldwide third-quarter market share at 17.3 percent versus 15.2 percent for RIM.

Apple and RIM have been throwing down for months; the iPhone 2.0 has features squarely aimed at the business market, while BlackBerry has been marketing itself as a lifestyle device lately. It’s also taking on the iPhone from a feature standpoint with the new BlackBerry Storm touchscreen device, due out from Verizon Wireless.

Apple now trails only Nokia in market position worldwide, reducing the overall market leader’s share from 51.4 to 38.9 percent.

Canalys said the smartphone category grew 28 percent year after year to 40 million units — in stark contrast to the overall cell phone market, which came in at a stagnant 3 percent.

Share this article: Email, Slashdot, Digg, Del.icio.us, Yahoo!MyWeb, Windows Live Favorites, Furl
Add this article feed to: RSS, My Yahoo, Newsgator, Bloglines