While the iPhone was the top selling "smartphone" in July, it did not outsell all other smartphones combined, as was widely and breathlessly reported. Our report did not make any claims about combined sales, but we did find iSuppli's report somewhat confusing because it implicitly indicated that RIM wasn't selling many phones, which we knew not to be true. You can't quit the Crackberry that easy!

As it turns out, when all July sales of various Blackberry (Pearl, 7130e, etc.) and iPhone (4GB, 8GB) models are combined for an iPhone versus Blackberry battle royale, it's RIM who comes out on top, by a margin of about 2-to-1.Straight from iSuppli:

"iSuppli's sell-through research and the subsequent press release indicated that the iPhone outsold all smart phone models in July in the United States on an individual basis. While iSuppli stands by this analysis, it is important to note that iPhone's retail sales did not exceed the combined retail sales of the entire BlackBerry line of smart phones (approximately twice that of the iPhone if taken in total) in the United States in July."

iSuppli previously said that the iPhone accounted for 1.8 percent of all mobile handset sales in July. The company also noted that it does not consider the iPhone to be a smartphone itself, but a crossover phone (it would need official support for third-party software in order to be elevated to smartphone status).


Correction: BlackBerry outsells iPhone 2-to-1 in July