Research In Motion, the company behind the Blackberry phone, shifted 382,000 handsets in Q3 2009, compared to 254,000 iPhones sold by Apple, according to research by The Nielsen Company.
Both companies fuelled the boom in smartphone ownership in the UK which increased by 10 per cent between Q2 and Q3. And there is still a large market to target with just one in seven Britons owning a smartphone.
Due to the growth of Apple and RIM, Nokia no longer enjoys a majority share of the smartphone market in the UK: the Finnish manufacturer's share dropped from 51 per cent to 44 per cent in Q3 compared to Q2, said Nielsen.
The good news for advertisers is that the number of people browsing the web on mobile increased 32 per cent between Q2 and Q3 to 10.4 millioin, while over four million people now download apps to their handset.
Top five device manufacturers by share of UK smartphone market:
| Rank | Manufacturer | Q3 no. of UK smartphone owners (000s) | Q3 %age UK smartphone owners | Q2 %age UK smartphone owners |
| 1 | Nokia | 2,690 | 44% | 51% |
| 2 | RIM | 1,151 | 19% | 14% |
| 3 | Apple | 1,015 | 17% | 14% |
| 4 | HTC | 579 | 9% | 12% |
| 5 | Samsung | 316 | 5% | 6% |
Source: The Nielsen Company