iPhone Reaches #2 in Worldwide Smartphone Shipments, Passes RIM

Well, that was pretty darn fast, wasn't it? According to a new report, the iPhone has reached the #2 position among smartphone shipments, gaining on market leader Nokia and passing RIM and its BlackBerry devices.

The report, by market research firm Canalys was released on Thursday. It showed Apple shipping nearly 6.9 million iPhones in Q3, passing RIM at 6 million devices, and trailing Nokia with 15.5 million devices.

That also cut Nokia's share from 51.4% to 38.9%, while the iPhone's market share rose to 17.3%.

At the same time, Apple's reached the #2 rank in smartphone OS shipments, following Nokia which owned 46.6% of the market and shipped 18.6 million devices. Interestingly, despite frequent criticism of its smartphone OS, Microsoft increased its share of the smartphone OS market year-over-year

BTW, Nokia's Symbian OS ships not just on its own phones, but on the devices of other OEMs, while Apple's OS obviously ships only on its own devices, and specifically, on one phone.

And this lack of different phones, according to Canalys, could lead to RIM overtaking Apple in Q4. As well, RIM had a great Q3, taking market share from Nokia, also. Pete Cunningham, Canalys senior analyst said:

"This is also a tremendous performance, especially considering the delays it experienced in rolling out the Blackberry Bold. Some customers will also have been waiting for the Storm to arrive. With these new products and the clamshell Pearl 8220 available in Q4, it is quite feasible that RIM will return to the number two position."

After all, if Steve Jobs has any different iPhone models in the warehouse, they won't be unveiled before Macworld in January.