The first is a quarter-by-quarter snapshot of the worldwide smartphone market that shows a sharp uptick in Apple’s (AAPL) share set against the downward drift of its major competitors — Nokia’s (NOK) Symbian, RIM’s (RIMM) BlackBerry and Microsoft’s (MSFT) Windows Mobile.

The second chart shows the same data without Symbian — which lets you zero in on the competition between the iPhone, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile. In this chart, the rise in Apple’s market share after the July release of the iPhone 3G looks positively meteoric.

The third chart shows the battle for the U.S. smartphone market, which is shaping up as a two-way race with the iPhone closing in on BlackBerry and Palm (PALM) and Microsoft Windows falling ever further behind. Note that Apple more than tripled its market share in the third quarter to grab 30% of the domestic smartphone business, while RIM lost considerable momentum and most of its lead. According to Wolf, the seven million iPhones Apple shipped in the September quarter accounted for all the growth in smartphone shipments that quarter — and then some. See AppleInsider here.