Shoppers Hot for Smartphones: Report
NEW YORK, (
) -- Thrifty shoppers? Not necessarily in the smartphone market.
In a trend that seems to run counter to high unemployment rates and rising gas prices, people bought more $200 phones than cheap or free phones in the third quarter,
. Only one of the top five fastest-selling phones in the U.S. was a "dumb" phone.
In the past, promotional prices as low as $0 on simple flip phones or messaging phones were usually the big drivers of sales, with cheap models outselling more expensive devices by a mile.
RIM BlackBerry 8500 |
Not so this past quarter as more people jumped on the superphone trend.
Leading the way, of course was the iconic
Apple
(AAPL) - Get Report
iPhone, which was introduced in June and suffered little in the ensuing
controversy. Apple sold 14.1 million phones in the most recent quarter.
But the big surprise was
Research In Motion
(RIMM)
. BlackBerries were expected to be crushed by the rise of Apple's iPhone and a host of
(GOOG) - Get Report
Android phones. But the BlackBerry Curve managed to grab the No. 2 spot for most popular phones.
Pictured above, the Curve was a big hit not just with the usual BlackBerry crowd, but also among so-called prepaid customers who didn't lock into contracts, instead preferring to pay on a month-by-month basis. Outfits like
MetroPCS
(PCS)
and
Sprint's
(S) - Get Report
Boost Mobile
were big sellers of the typist-friendly BlackBerry Curve.
Landing at No. 3 was
LG's
Cosmos phone. This is the only messaging phone (read: non-smartphone) on the list and a big seller at
Verizon
(VZ) - Get Report
and Sprint's
Virgin Mobile
.
Google Android phones round out the list with
Motorola's
(MOT)
Droid X at No. 4 and Verizon and Sprint's
HTC
EVO at fifth.
--Written by Scott Moritz in New York.>To contact this writer, click here: Scott Moritz, or email: scott.moritz@thestreet.com.To follow Scott on Twitter, go to http://twitter.com/TheStreet_Tech.>To send a tip, email: tips@thestreet.com.
