Edible Apple

Apple’s iPhone continues to gobble up smartphone market share, representing 13.3% of worldwide market share during the second quarter of 2009.  Even more impressive is that at this time a year ago, Apple’s iPhone only occupied a 2.8% market share for smartphones worldwide, representing a nearly 6x increase in just 12 months.  Of course, last year at this time, the iPhone 3G was less than a month old and Apple had yet to make a big push into a number of foreign markets.

Taking a step back, the iPhone’s growth should be looked at from within the context of the smartphone market at large, which itself continues to grow at an impressive rate.  Since 2008, the percentage of people who own smartphones increased by 28% while the market for regular mobile phones contracted by 6%.

In its research report, Gartner notes:

Apple’s expansion into a larger number of countries in the past year has produced a clear effect on sales volumes, as have the recent price adjustments on the 8GB 3G iPhone. Sales of 5.4 million units in the second quarter of 2009 indicated a 51 per cent growth in shipments and helped Apple maintain the No. 3 position in the smartphone market, where it has stayed since the third quarter of 2008. Apple brought its much-anticipated new device — the iPhone 3G S — to market at the end of the second quarter of 2009, but its full potential will only start to show in the sales figures in the second half of 2009.