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The latest research by Gartner Research shows some interesting movement in the smartphone market, principally that the iPhone is seeing unprecedented sales and growth at the expense of all other device manufacturers and operating systems.  The numbers, which only represent the sales and market share from the 3rd quarter 2008, show an astonishing 327.5% gain for Apple from this time last year:

Granted, the release of the 3G iPhone in Q3 certainly has elevated these numbers, but it is remains pretty stunning that in Q2 of 2008 Apple only commanded 2.8% of the market share and now holds 12.9% of the market.  And for the first time Apple has outsold Windows mobile, something that many industry analysts didn’t even see happening, or if they did, not so soon.

No doubt, Symbian is still the world leading smartphone OS, but they saw their lead erode by 7.1% in a matter of months from 57.1% in Q2 to 49.8% in Q3.  JKOnTheRun asserts, probably accurately, that Symbian will continue to slip as they have no new phones available and the recently announced N97 won’t hit the market for six months so people may hold off buying a new Nokia knowing that the N97 is right around the corner.  Apple has been riding pretty high lately, it will be interesting to see if they can keep it going.

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