UK smartphone boom goes BlackBerry way!

Paul Nesbitt

Recession be damned! UK citizens are snapping up smartphones, and more and more of them are using BlackBerries and iPhones at the expense of Nokia handsets.

The latest Nielsen research shows that 6.2 million people were using smartphones in the UK during the third quarter of this year, a 10% rise on the 5.6 million using them during the second quarter of 2009.

The smartphone market accounts for 15% of the overall UK mobile market when it comes to ownership.

Nokia's share of this market fell from 51% in Q2 to 44%, still way ahead of the competition, but a worrying fall nonetheless.

The fastest growing pretender to the throne is not Apple's iPhone, but RIM's BlackBerry, which accounted for 19% of UK users, up from 14% in Q2.

RIM added 382,000 new UK users compared to the 254,000 new users that Apple recruited to the iPhone.

Apple's iPhone accounted for 17% of UK users, up from 14% in Q2.