Motorola Still Sells, BlackBerry Sees Surge

Despite struggling to earn money, Strategy Analytics says Motorola is still the top phone brand in the U.S. - and BlackBerries are coming on strong.

A new market analysis report from Strategy Analytics finds that U.S. mobile phone shipments rose 5.3 percent during the second quarter of 2008…and despite struggling to turn a significant profit on its mobile phone business, the firm still gives Motorola the top spot in the U.S. market, accounting for 26 percent of all phones sold during the second quarter. South Korea’s LG came in second, accounting for 22 percent of the U.S. phone market, while Nokia—still the world’s largest handset maker—captured only 9 percent of the U.S. market during the second quarter.

But the real story in the report might be sales of RIM’s BlackBerry smartphones, which surged to capture 11 percent of the U.S. market during the second quarter, validating the company’s recent strategy to produce smaller, consumer-friendly devices rather than focusing exclusively on enterprise and government sectors. Apple’s iPhone landed in third place amongst smartphones, accounting for nearly 30 percent of the U.S. smartphone market and surpassing Palm and Windows Mobile devices.

Overall, the U.S. mobile phone market accounted for 41.9 million handsets during the second quarter of 2008, up from 39.8 million in the second quarter of 2007.