As Apple soared in the smartphone market last quarter with the sales of the iPhone 3G it still wasn’t enough to knock Nokia off if the number one spot as the leading vendor in the smartphone market with 38.9 percent of the market. But where is Research in Motion and the BlackBerry? With the BlackBerry Bold, BlackBerry Pearl and BlackBerry Curve out now, or will it be the BlackBerry Storm that will send the world into BlackBerry frenzy?

Analysts predict that RIM will take the number two spot from Apple once the Storm is released but do not expect it to take the number one spot from Nokia who are the largest mobile phone manufacturer on the world.

So although the iPhone 3G was the talk of the town in the third quarter, will they be able to sustain growth in the fourth quarter? With Nokia falling 12.5 percent on shipment this year compared to last year due to a transition from older models we believe it’s going to be a very close race in deed between Nokia, Apple and RIM.

With figures showing that 39.9 million smartphones were shipped in the third quarter of 2008 alone, the smartphone market is one that every phone company wants to excel in.

Source: news.cnet