The iPhone is beating BlackBerry

Asavin Wattanajantra

The iPhone is fast eating up the market share of Research in Motion (RIM), with Apple soon to overtake it as the second most popular smartphone vendor.

According to research from IDC, Apple had 16.1 per cent of shipments in the first quarter of this year, up from 10.1 per cent last year. RIM slipped from 20.9 per cent to 19.4 per cent.

The stats said that smartphones were fast becoming more popular, with vendors shipping a total of 54.7 million units in the first quarter of 2010, which was up 56.7 per cent from a year ago.

"2010 looks to be another year of large-scale consumer adoption of converged mobile devices," said Ramon Llamas, senior research analyst with IDC’s Mobile Devices Technology and Trends team.

"Consumers will gravitate to smartphones not just because the devices themselves look 'cool' and 'slick', but because the overall experience aligns with their individual tastes and demands."

"Users are seeking – and finding – experiences that are intuitive, seamless, and fun. Already, we've seen what Palm's webOS and Google's Android can do."

"This year, we expect updates for BlackBerry, Symbian, and Windows Mobile to spark greater smartphone demand with their offerings."

Nokia remained the number one smartphone vendor with an unchanged 39.3 per cent market share, while HTC and Motorola came fourth and fifth respectively.