Best Selling US Handset: iPhone 3G

NPD market research has released a report stating that the iPhone is the top mobile handset in the United States, holding a second place only behind the wildly popular Motorola RAZR of its time. The iPhone had captured 17% of smartphone sales, beating out rivals Research in Motion with the BlackBerry Pearl and Curve as well as Palm with the Centro smartphone.



Of those who purchased the latest iPhone model, nearly 30% are switchers from other carriers. Of that number, nearly half are defectors of Verizon Wireless, 24% from T-Mobile, and 19% from Sprint. The lower price point of the iPhone 3G as well as faster 3G network speeds were cited as major reasons for adoption of the mobile handset.

The success of the iPhone hasn’t come without problems. A rushed launch caused many crashes and issues that were only solved with the release of the 2.1 firmware. AT&T also has had capacity issues, with users reporting slower than advertised data speeds, dropped calls, and network outages. AT&T has admitted that it needed to rapidly build out network capacity post-launch of the iPhone 3G to accommodate the extra bandwidth that was being used by iPhone users.