iPhone Sales Still Ahead of the Competition

Despite heavy competition from smartphones using the Android OS, Apple's iPhone is still holding on to the biggest market share.

According to data released by analyst Nielsen, Apple owned 28 per cent of the smartphone global market by the end of the first quarter of 2010, a rise of 2 per cent from the previous quarter.

The iPhone has been under immense pressure from Android-based smartphones, but it seems that it has managed not only to hold on to its share, but also advance in the smartphone market.

According to the data, smartphones using Google's Android OS account for a market share of 9 per cent.

Even with the release of popular HTC phone's, Hero, Desire and Legend, the OS has failed to diminish the iPhone's market share.

Research In Motion's BlackBerry smartphone has a market share of 35 per cent, according to Nielsen. Its figures were down by 2 per cent, indicating that the iPhone and Android have finally started eating into the BlackBerry's user base.

New research conducted by Gartner had estimated that 8.3 million handsets running on Apple's iPhone OS sold in the first three months of 2010, significantly more than those of Google's Android OS.