Apple has jumped above Nokia to become the top selling smartphone maker with 20.34 million iPhones sold in its last fiscal quarter, compared to Nokia’s 16.7 million smartphones. While Apple was already ranked as the top smartphone maker based on revenue and profit, this marks the first time the company has out ranked Nokia for total units sold.
Nokia’s quarterly smartphone sales dropped some 34 percent year-over-year, while iPhone sales increased 142 percent compared to the same quarter last year. Apple’s continual rise in the smartphone market comes as a blow to other phone makers, many of which assumed the Cupertino-based company wouldn’t be able to compete when it introduced the iPhone in 2007.
Nokia recently teamed with Microsoft to with plans to start building Windows-based smartphones to better compete in the market. The move could help the company to better compete in the smartphone market, although it does have to compete with Apple and a long list of companies building Android-based phones.
Apple last updated the iPhone over a year ago, and sales world wide are still increasing. Analysts and rumor sites expect Apple to release a new iPhone model this fall, possibly when iOS 5 ships, although the company hasn’t commented on its plans.
[Thanks to the Financial Times for the heads up.]