Apple iPhone sales outshine BlackBerry: Report

LONDON - Apple’s iPhone range has outdone BlackBerry, as one of the world’s biggest mobile phone companies, new figures have suggested.

Apple shipped 14.1 million handsets during the most recent financial quarter, up 91 per cent on the same quarter last year, according to analysts at Strategy Analytics.

Bumper sales of Apple’s flagship iPhone 4 has seen the company outperform Research in Motion, the Canadian company that makes the BlackBerry range of smartphone devices, reports the Telegraph.

RIM shipped 12.4 million units during that period, an increase of 46 per cent on the same quarter last year.

The reversal of fortunes has prompted some industry experts to question whether the popularity of the BlackBerry could be on the wane, as other devices match the mobile emailer for efficiency and usability.

A total of 327 million mobile phones were shipped worldwide during the third financial quarter of this year, up from 291 million on the same period last year.

Strategy Analytics said that growth had been less than expected and slightly down on the first six months of the year, but blamed this on component shortages and ongoing economic volatility, which “slightly constrained volumes”.

Strategy Analytics said this figure represented just a two per cent annual growth on the same figure last year, but was the ninth consecutive quarter in which the troubled Finnish company had grown volumes above the market average. (ANI)