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Apple now the world's No. 3 smartphone vendor

Apple during the first quarter of 2008 rode the booming smartphone market to sales of more than 1.7 million iPhones, good enough to make it the No. 3 manufacturer of multi-function handsets worldwide, according to a report released Friday by market research firm Gartner.

The Cupertino-based electronics maker ended the quarter with a 5.3 percent share of the global smartphone market, behind Nokia and Research In Motion (RIM), whose sales of 14.58 million and 4.31 million smartphones garnered a 45.2 percent and 13.4 percent share, respectively.

In the US, Apple faired even better by claiming the No. 2 spot overall with a 20 percent share of the market. The iPhone maker, however, remains a distant second to RIM, which maintained its No. 1 US ranking with a share totaling 42 percent.

Overall, Gartner said first quarter worldwide smartphone sales to end users grew 29 percent compared to the same period in 2007, reaching 32.2 million units. The firm added the smartphones accounted for 11 percent of the global mobile device market.

In Europe, Middle East, and Africa, sales of the integrated devices totaled 11.7 million units, a 38.7 percent increase from the first quarter of 2007. Meanwhile, the blistering North American smartphone market saw sales skyrocket by more than 106 percent to 7.3 million units.

"Despite economic concerns, the smartphone market continued to expand in the United States, driven by heavy advertising and strong marketing promotions as more devices reached mass market price points,” said Hugues De La Vergne, principal analyst for mobile terminals research at Gartner. "North American operators are giving these devices strong support, as they provide higher average revenue per unit."

Globally, RIM saw the biggest rise year-over-year, with sales of its BlackBerry handsets more than doubling to reach a growth rate of 107 percent. Nokia took second honors in the growth category with sales of its devices rising more than 25 percent. The biggest loser was Tokyo-based Sharp, whose smartphone sales declined 24 percent to just 1.3 million units.



66 Comments

MacPro 19 Years · 19854 comments

And what was it the 'experts' from other phone companies said before Apple launched ...?

This is a re run of on line music sales success ...

Apple will overtake RIM

poke 17 Years · 506 comments

Apple saw the biggest growth. From 0 to 1.7 million. I'm sure Steve would have no qualms about dividing by zero. That's infinity% growth!

ivlad 18 Years · 742 comments

This just gave me a cold rush. Anyone else realizes that although Apple is number 3, this place is achieved with ONE MODEL!!! Look at other competitors. They have like 25 different phones and things going on and this took them years.
The people working at apple really know how to invade! LOL Can we hire them to our government?

LOL no...its ok, actually that's not a good idea.

I am very impressed with Apple's goals and achievements!

*tear
hehehehheeh

fishstick_kitty 17 Years · 175 comments

Quote:
Originally Posted by poke

Apple saw the biggest growth. From 0 to 1.7 million. I'm sure Steve would have no qualms about dividing by zero. That's infinity% growth!

actually if they only sold 1 unit, the growth rate would still be infinity