Here are two pictures worth a couple thousand words. They’re from a study commissioned by Symbian (jointly owned by Nokia, Ericsson, Sony Ericsson, Panasonic, Siemens and Samsung), but published so quietly that we might never had heard about it if Daniel Eran Dilger of
Roughly Drafted
had not dug it out.
What the study shows, among other things, is that, in its first full quarter of sales, Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone outsold all the smartphones in the North American market except for RIM’s (RIMM) Blackberry. That puts it ahead of the entire field of devices running Microsoft’s (MSFT) Windows Mobile, Linux or Palm OS.
As Dilger puts it, the iPhone’s debut at second place is particularly noteworthy because …
… the iPhone was only being sold in the US, and is only available through AT&T; all of the other mobile platforms are available to Sprint, Verizon Wireless, and T-Mobile as well as AT&T. The iPhone wasn’t available in the significant markets of Canada and Mexico, along with parts of the US that AT&T does not service, including much of Vermont, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Alaska.
For more analysis of the study and what it means for Microsoft, Symbian and beleaguered Palm (PALM), see Roughly Drafted‘s full report here.