Tag Archive: Pearl

Sure, sure: all the media buzz in the mobile industry might be about the Apple iPhone and how other companies are trying to respond to its popularity, but only RIM seems to be having any actual success going up against the iPhone. According to new market numbers from research firm NPD, the BlackBerry Curve 83xx models were the top-selling smartphone in the United States during the first quarter of 2009. In fact, RIM smartphones accounted for three of the top five sales positions, with the BlackBerry Storm and BlackBerry Pearl taking the third and fourth slots. The iPhone 3G was number two, while the T-Mobile G1 took fifth place.

A new report from The NPD Group finds that 30 percent of U.S. consumers who bought an iPhone 3G from June through August switched to AT&T from another wireless carrier. Of those “switchers,” nearly half came to AT&T from Verizon Wireless, with 24 percent switching from T-Mobile and 19 percent switching from Sprint.

“The launch of the lower-priced iPhone 3G was a boon to overall consumer smartphone sales,” said NPD’s director of industry analysis Ross Rubin, in a statement. “While the original iPhone also helped win customers for AT&T, the faster network speeds of the iPhone 3G has proven more appealing to customers that already had access to a 3G network.”