For all you Apple naysayers that just didn’t believe Apple’s claim that their iPhone 3G sales were enough to make Apple the second-largest smartphone vendor (by sales) in the world, a new report confirms Cupertino’s assertion.
Apple recently announced that their Q3 2008 sales figures for the iPhone 3G surpassed those of RIM’s BlackBerry lineup, displacing the Waterloo-based RIM as the world’s No. 2 smartphone maker. And, to confirm Apple’s latest claim to fame (or beat the issue to death, depending on how you look at it), market analysis firm Canalys has come out with a report that puts Apple at a solid second-place for smartphone market share.
Apple is reported to have captured 17.3 percent of the global smartphone market, while rival RIM managed a close 15.2 percent.
“The introduction of the iPhone 3G in July and Apple’s expansion into many more countries helped propel the vendor to second place globally,” Canalys said in a statement.
Now, Apple’s market share in Q4 may succumb to RIM’s holiday-assault with the BlackBerry 9000 Bold (recently launched in the US on AT&T’s network) and the hotly anticipated BlackBerry 9500 Storm. As the company’s first-ever BlackBerry handset to feature an all-touchscreen setup, the BlackBerry Storm has fast become the most searched for handset on the web.
With the BlackBerry Storm nearing the media-hype that was generated when Apple first announced its media-darling iPhone in 2007, RIM could very well retake the No. 2 spot from Apple.
[Via: Reuters]