Apple’s iPhone is no longer the best selling phone on the U.S. market, according to an NPD survey. During January 1 and March 31, the Blackberry Curve has managed to gain the first spot in the “best selling” rankings. iPhone ranked second, while Blackberry Storm, Blackberry Pearl and T-Mobile G1 (with Android OS) completed the top 5.
According to Ross Rubin, analyst at NPD Group stated that this does not mean the iPhone has completed its dominance. Rubin thinks that Blackberry Curve gained so much in popularity due to some aggressive promotion.
One of the reasons was that Apple has an exclusivity contract with AT&T for the U.S., while Curve could be bought from four major carriers. But the thing that is mainly responsible for Curve’s huge increase in popularity was the offer from Verizon where you get two Curve phones for the price of one. No matter how better the iPhone might or might not be, these two reasons were enough to end its dominance at least for now.
Rubin tried to sum up some of the characteristics of Curve: “It’s lightweight, inexpensive and thin, and it embodies the characteristics that make the BlackBerry a popular phone,”.
It is highly probable that now, with the end of the Verizon offer, iPhone will regain its top spot among the best sold phones in the US. As for the reason why Blackberry chose this aggressive promotion method, it is believed that it was an anticipation signal for the Palm Pre. And with Sprint organizing major investments to market and promote the Pre, it is obvious that it will become a major opponent for the iPhone.
As a side note, we should recognize that the smartphone market is increasing, a fact signalized by T-Mobile’s G1 into the top five best sold phones. It should be noticed that more and more people turn their attention towards such a device even though the calling plans cost more than for regular phones.
As a conclusion, the iPhone should regain its dominance over the US market soon, but that can also be influenced by Apple’s own decision to release a new version of the iPhone. If that happens, it is expected that they will ship less phones prior to the new release. It should be an interesting quarter in the phone market.
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