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May 4, 2010

Apple has definetely narrowed the gap between the iPhone and Research in Motion's BlackBerry.

And this is heating up a fight that's been raging on for the past few months, in a quest to become the world's largest seller of smartphones.

And Apple's first quarter numbers are up a full two percentage points on the 14.4 per cent share it scored for last year as a whole. Apple now commands 16.4 percent of the global smartphone market share, and that market share is rapidly increasing.

But for its part, RIM's market share is still the same, at 19.7 percent, stagnant from last year.

Year on year, it was effectively static as well, falling a fraction of a percentage point from the 20.3 percent share it achieved in the first quarter of last year.

On the other hand, Apple's iPhone saw its share grow from 10.6 per cent in the same timeframe.

But so far, neither company is yet able to challenge market leader Nokia, which recorded a Q1 2010 share of 40 per cent, up from 38.2 per cent in Q1 2009 and 38.8 per cent for 2009 as a whole.

According to market researcher Strategy Analytics, Apple accounted for 16.4 per cent of world smartphone shipments in Q1 2010 - just 3.3 percentage points behind RIM.

So there's really no question that the battle is intensifying.

The gains made by Apple and Nokia came at the expense of the 'others' category, which saw their share fall from 30.9 per cent in Q1 2009 to 23.8 per cent in Q1 2010.

Apple shifted no less than 8.8 million iPhones during the same quarter. That now makes it the U.S.' biggest smartphone maker, Motorola having just announced that it sold 8.5 million wireless handsets during the three-month period.

Wireless industry research firm iSuppli said last week that, during Q1, overall smartphone shipments hit 53.7 million units globally, up almost 50 per cent on Q1 2009's total, 35.9 million.

Earlier last month, Apple confirmed that it sold no less than 300,000 of its new iPad units in the U.S. alone on the first day the highly anticipated tablet computer was available in stores Saturday.

The electronic device maker added that the 300,000 number also includes deliveries of pre-ordered iPads, deliveries to channel partners and all sales at its many Apple retail stores located in the U.S.

Apple didn't provide sales numbers for Sunday, however, but some observers say they could top 50,000 more units.

The company also said iPad users downloaded about 1.1 million mobile apps from Apple's App Store and over 250,000 ebooks from its iBookstore during Saturday's launch of the iPad.

To be sure, overall expectations for the iPad's debut varied widely, with some forecasts calling for sales in the range of 650,000 to 720,000 in the first day.

However, wireless industry analysts said first-day sales do not necessarily reflect how the iPad will do over the longer term that it is offered to the public.

Shaw Wu, analyst at Kaufman Brothers wrote in a research report "we believe the new iPad has the potential to become a high volume device as it could revolutionize publishing and gaming markets, not to mention mobile computing itself."

"Our concern for now is that it may take several quarters to a few years before we really find out what the potential really is," added Wu.

He expects Apple to sell 10 million iPads over the next 12 months, with sales climbing as high as 20 million next year. Other analysts think Wu's projections are a bit optimistic, but not all agree.

While the iPad's first day wasn't as spectacular as some had anticipated, many Wall Street analysts still raised price targets for Apple stock closer to $300 a share.

We are now expecting fresh new sales numbers from Apple as the week progresses. We will keep you posted.

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Source: iSuppli.