Apple Inc. beat rival Research In Motion (RIM) in sales of smartphones for the first time in the third quarter of 2008.  Though Nokia is well ahead of Apple in the worldwide market, figures out yesterday ranked Apple's iPhone 3G as the best selling cellular handset in the United States.
When it introduced its iPhone last year, Apple was a newcomer to the cellular phone market, but in figures published on Thursday, it rose to second place in a ranking of smartphone manufacturers, ahead of established players like Canadian RIM—makers of the BlackBerry—American Motorola, and Taiwanese HTC.
Apple’s chief executive, Steve Jobs, anticipated the detailed figures in a news conference on October 21st. ”I'd like to point out [a] remarkable milestone resulting from iPhone's outstanding performance last quarter,” he said. ”Apple beat RIM”.  
According to tech analysts Canalys, the number of iPhones shipped in the third quarter of 2008 was 6.8 million, while RIM shipped 6.1 million BlackBerry phones.  Nokia sold more worldwide than the other two put together.
Referring to the introduction of the 3G iPhone family, Pete Cunningham of Canalys said “It was expected that Apple would figure among the smartphone leaders this quarter, with that huge initial new product shipment; it was just a question of how high up it would be – and this is impressive.”
The figures for Q3 handset sales in the United States came from NPD Group. 

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iPhone sales exceed BlackBerry