And guess who the US smartphone market leader is? (It doesn't begin with "A")

By John Cox on Tue, 09/09/08 - 9:02am.

Research in Motion captured almost 54% of the U.S. smartphone market for the second quarter of 2008, according to IDC's latest data.

That was a big jump in market share -- almost 10 percentage points -- from the first quarter, and the gain came at the expense of Apple, maker of the iPhone, and Palm, both of which lost market share.

RIM has been on a roll with strong growth in smartphone sales fueling blazing revenue and profits. The company shipped nearly 5.4 million devices in its first fiscal quarter this year.

Apple's share plummeted more than half to 7.4% in Q2, from 19.2% in Q1. The drop may be temporary, if buyers postponed iPhone investments until the release of the new iPhone 3G, which became available in July.

RIM's gain was driven by introducting two smartphones, BlackBerry Pearl and BlackBerry Curve, on Sprint Nextel and Verizone Wireless CDMA networks, starting in late 2007. RIM had initially released them on GSM networks from AT&T and T-Mobile in 2006 and 2007.

RIM is in the process of rolling out with carriers yet another smartphone, the recently announced BlackBerry Bold, a 3G phone with a big crisp display and Wi-Fi. The company is rumored to be preparing a touch-screen version of Bold, dubbed by outsiders the "TouchBerry."

Palm's share of the U.S. smartphone market dropped to 10.8% in Q2, down from 13.4% in the previous quarter. The company just introduced the Treo Pro, an unlocked 3G Windows Mobile 6.1 smartphone tailored for business users. At the time of the announcement, no U.S. carriers had committed to offering the new handset.