Verizon Wireless’ “buy-one-get -one” promotion helped Research In Motion’s BlackBerry Curve move past Apple’s iPhone to become the best-selling consumer smartphone in the United States in the first quarter, according to The NPD Group.
RIM's consumer smartphone market share increased 15 percent to nearly 50 percent of the smartphone market in the first quarter versus the prior quarter, as Apple's and Palm's share both declined 10 percent each, the research firm says.
Based on U.S. consumer sales of smartphone handsets in NPD's report, the first-quarter 2009 ranking of the top-five best-selling smartphones is as follows: 1. RIM BlackBerry Curve (all 83XX models) 2. Apple iPhone 3G (all models) 3. RIM BlackBerry Storm 4. RIM BlackBerry Pearl (all models, except flip) 5. T-Mobile G1
Smartphones, which represented 17 percent of handset sales volume in the first quarter of 2008, now make up 23 percent of sales, according to NPD.