iPhone knocks Razr off top of the cellphone charts

Apple's iPhone 3G (right) has topped NPD's retail sales chart in the world's biggest smartphone market for the first time.

The market tracker says among US adult consumers, Motorola's Razr has let the pack for 12 straight quarters since its 2004 launch.

But among adult retail buyers for Q3, the iPhone 3G is the new sales king. NPD's top 5:

1. Apple iPhone 3G
2. Motorola RAZR V3 (all models)
3. RIM Blackberry Curve (all models)
4. LG Rumor
5. LG enV2

NPD's survey does not take in corporate sales, an arena where BlackBerry rules. From the companies' own figures - Apple claims 6.9 million iPhone sales for the quarter, RIM 6.8 million BlackBerries - Apple seems ahead overall anyway. RIM will be hoping for a comeback when it releases its much anticipated BlackBerry Storm in the US (and NZ) midway through this month.

The good news: retail shoppers are strongly favouring more expensive internet, email and multimedia models like the iPhone, Curve and LG's Rumor.

The bad news: Apple rules a shrinking market. Phone sales dropped 15% from Q3 07 to 32 million. Revenue less, at 10%, with the fall in total sales mitigated a little by the iPhone and BlackBerry's higher price than the Razr.

And the worse news: Apple is predicting a slow Christmas, lowering its guidance for Q4, in line with analysts reports of a retail slowdown for the company's products - already flowing through to local Apple distributor Renaissance, which yesterday lowered its profit forecast following slow distribution and retail results across its business.

IDC analyst Mark Novosel says the iPhone 3G was released too late to be included in his company's Q3 mobile phone market tracking survey. His latest survey, for Q2, shows BlackBerry leading the "converged device" market here (excluding parallel imports) with 11,600 BlackBerries shipped to New Zealand during Q2.

A Vodafone New Zealand spokesman would not give iPhone 3G sales figures, but said they far exceeded budget and were "in the tens of thousands" since the handset's June launch.