Apple’s iPhone is now outselling RIM’s BlackBerry, Gizmodo reports.
Apple, just a year and a half into the smartphone business, now has a higher marketshare than Canadian giant Research in Motion, and is second place only to Nokia. Apple’s 17.3% share is just barely beating out RIM’s 15.2%, and of course is nowhere near Nokia’s 38.9%, but it’s just one more sign of how important the iPhone really is.
The iPhone 3G’s launch throughout the rest of the world has had a huge effect on sales, and the phone has sold nearly 7 million since its July 11 debut. Apple’s share of the entire cell phone market is now 2.3%, a pretty respectable number, and has pushed Microsoft’s ailing Windows Mobile platform off the medal platform into 4th place.
Ars Technica notes that the competition is fighting back, with “BlackBerry launching new Storm, Bold, and Pearl models; and Google jumping in the fray with its Linux-based Android smartphone OS, competition for the smartphone market has never been hotter.
The iPhone has been much hyped, so I’m not surprised it’s doing so well. I am, however, rather shocked that Nokia is in first place. “BlackBerry” is almost a generic name for the genre, much like “Xerox” was in the photocopying business.
I use their Curve model, which I’ve had for a year and a half or so, and am relatively pleased with it. It’s not a great Web browsing tool, mostly because it doesn’t support Javascript, but it’s a decent phone and an excellent email device and a mediocre camera. The circumstances in which I’d want my phone to double as a portable music player or entertainment system are rare indeed, since I’ve got music in my car and carry a notebook computer when I travel.
