Apple and RIM Add Q1 Share

Both the BlackBerry and iPhone have contributed to a downfall in Nokia's smartphone marketshare in the latest quarter, Gartner analysts report. The Finnish phone maker's influence dropped from 46.7 percent of the world market in the first quarter of 2007 to 45.2 percent a year later after aggressive moves by both Apple and Research in Motion into its territory. The iPhone as a new entrant for the quarter earned about 5.3 percent of the smartphone business through shipping 1.7 million iPhones between January and March; RIM, in turn, climbed from 8.3 percent to 13.4 percent on the back of 4.3 million BlackBerries delivered during the three-month span.

The shift was helped by the sudden growth of the smartphone market in the US, according to Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi. Although Strategy Analytics suggests the overall world phone market shrunk in the period and saw Apple lose share at the same time as Motorola and Sony Ericsson, the US smartphone industry grew to where smartphones were nearly as important as they are in Western Europe. The continent has traditionally embraced smartphones more readily than the US courtesy of both more widespread 3G cellular Internet access as well as different data plans and a wider variety of high-end phones from companies that operate in the region.

Japanese cellphone makers Sharp and Fujitsu occupy the third- and fourth-place positions in Gartner's chart and both dropped significantly year-over-year, falling from 7 percent and 5 percent respectively to tie at 4.1 percent of the market. Both primarily target the Japanese market, though Sharp builds some Sidekick messaging phones for T-Mobile.

By Electronista Staff