iPhone sales are up more than 4% from a year ago, while the leading smartphone seller, Nokia, is down 3% from a year ago. That's the word from Gartner Research today as they survey 3rd quarter sales.

According to Gartner research:

Apple's worldwide smartphone share reached 17 per cent as iPhone sales totalled 7 million units in the third quarter of 2009 following the continued rollout of the iPhone 3GS in new countries. Its ASP (average selling price) is holding steady and sales in the fourth quarter should be even stronger as Apple starts selling in China, through one additional carrier in the UK, and in an additional 16 countries.

Sales of Windows smartphones had another quarterly decline, with Windows Mobile 6.5 appearing too late to factor into the accounting.

For a company that was dismissed two years ago for not having any experience in building phones, Apple seems to doing more than just OK. By the same token, the competition from the new Droid from Verizon should keep Apple innovating.

It seems to be back to status quo ante now, and we're not sure exactly what was going on, but something apparently slipped off the crazy shelf and whacked the App Store firmly in the noggin. Multiple users and developers emailed to let us know that the Top Paid rankings in the store were completely jumbled up, with unfamiliar apps taking over the rankings from long-standing champs. iGlowStickPro? 301+ Short Stories? That ain't right.

The US store was definitely fritzy, but other tipsters report that the Australian store was affected as well. Now that things seem to be returning to normal, it's interesting to note how quickly everyone reacted to send a heads-up about the problem... when your monthly revenues depend on that Top Paid ranking slot, even a few minutes of confusion will get your attention in a hurry.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in.

It's like Econ 101 with the iPhone lately, says our old friend Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster. Demand is high, supplies are low, and so shortages are apparently expected. Especially in international markets, there just aren't enough iPhones to go around -- Munster cites a fellow analyst's report that 3 Italia, the Italian company charged with selling Apple's smartphone in that country, is selling 20K iPhones, but could be selling many more if they had the stock to do so.

Of course, they probably don't need to -- iPhone sales are already holding the company up above expectations, and Apple may even be figuring that a little demand never hurt anybody. Why sell a ton of phones when you're already selling more than you expected to? I doubt it's as mysterious as that (they probably expected to sell a certain number and it turns out there are more iPhone fans than they counted on overseas), but even if shortages happen, no one's going to be second guessing Apple's strategy. As far as straight results go for the iPhone, they haven't done anything wrong yet.

[via 9to5Mac]

Amidst the ongoing macroeconomic malaise (is it over yet? Can we come out from under the covers?), the PC industry's sales have been suffering as big corporations and cash-strapped consumers postpone those discretionary purchases of shiny new gear. The expectation, based on 2008's results, was that this quarter would be tough sledding.

Results from analysts Gartner and IDC, however, both show an uptick in unit sales across the PC market year-over-year (2.3% higher globally per IDC, 0.5% higher per Gartner). Any pickup in sales comes as a surprise to Gartner, which had predicted a 5.6% decline in unit shipments.

For Apple specifically, the news is also good: both firms predict a boost in unit sales and share percentage for Apple's CPU shipments, with US numbers up from 8.6% to 8.8% share (Gartner) or a blazing 9.4% share (IDC). For the unvarnished results, you can tune in this coming Monday, 10/19 at 2pm PT to hear Apple's quarterly earnings call.

[via BrainstormTech]

The iPhone is selling well in Australia. Research firm IDC reports that the iPhone has taken 21% of the Australian smartphone market share in the past 12 months, putting Apple in 2nd place behind Nokia and just ahead of Blackberry.

What's most interesting here is how the iPhone has increased overall smartphone shipments to Australia. Specifically, other manufacturers have had to keep up with customer demands for features similar to the iPhone's, and as a result customer interest and overall smartphone sales have "...intensified of the past couple of years," said IDC telecommunications analyst Mark Novosel. He expects Australia's smartphone market to grow steadily over the next five years.

Australia's first Apple retail store opened in July of 2008, and the iPhone was released shortly thereafter.

[Via MacDailyNews]

PocketGamer.biz has an interesting interview up with Pangea, makers of the iPhone physics puzzle game Enigmo, and they say that so far, their experience with in-app purchases has been pretty lukewarm. The software itself has sold over a million copies, but only a very small number of those customers are going for the in-app purchases -- about 25 per day, according to Pangea's Brian Greenstone. 25 per day may not be bad for a smaller developer, but Greenstone says he "was expecting hundreds."

Why aren't the microtransactions doing so hot? It's going to take time, first of all -- customers need to learn the value of picking up content piece by piece, and developers need to learn exactly how to price and plan the stuff out. On an established download service like Xbox Live, add-ons and content packs have become de rigueur, though some of those battles are still being fought. But on the App Store, not only are prices still up in the air, but in-app purchases are hard to find, and they're all over the map in terms of value versus investment.

Greenstone seems to believe what I'd tend to agree with: that after all of the dust has settled, customers will pay for content that's worth paying for -- he's just given up on worrying about pricing, and is focused on delivering content that's worth whatever he wants to charge. Eventually, both devs and customers will settle on a fair price, and when that happens, I'm sure we'll see some major in-app purchase sales.

Chris Foresman over at Ars Technica has an interesting pronouncement: A rule governed by the Financial Accounting Standards Board, that's been heavily lobbied for by Apple and other electronics companies, may be enough to lift the charge that iPod touch owners have had to pay for updates of significant features to their devices. It's complicated, but it all has to do with "subscription accounting" -- devices that gain "significant new functionality" after their sale, like the iPhone, have to be reported over a series of years rather than all at the same time (presumably because the revenues associated with the product were the result of a series of updates, not just one lump sum).

For the iPhone, it's fine -- they have subscription charges associated with them over two years anyway. But the iPod touch is different -- because Apple doesn't want to report the sales of those devices over a period of time, they've had to charge minimum fees for updates -- the $10 (and more recently, $5) that iPod touch owners have paid for the firmware updates. But if the new rule goes in (it still requires FASB approval), then Apple would be able to report sales of the iPod touch all together without having to worry about charging for updates, as well as the dual GAAP and non-GAAP reporting we've heard on their conference calls.

Plus, as Foresman says, it would help Apple's stock price (seeing all of the iPhone's sales at once would boost investor confidence), and it would help developers who are asking all users of both the iPhone and iPod touch to update right away -- they wouldn't have to wait for iPod touch owners to find a few bucks in their couch. With the weight of Apple behind this one, we can probably expect to see the rule approved (even if they have to make some concessions). And so while iPod touch owners will probably have to still keep waiting for a camera, they at least won't have to pay for more software updates.

Here's yet another interesting take on the burgeoning App Store environment. A company called Gendai Games has a game creator IDE/app called Gamesalad, designed to let you put together rapid prototype-style games for the Mac. They've been doing this for a while, and they even let you export your games out to the 'net using an online portal. But here's the kicker: they're also planning to let you take those games right out to the iPhone.

Their roadmap page talks about downloading to a test iPhone straight from a Mac, but presumably, they'd either have their own app on the App Store in which you could play your games, or even output it to some sort of wrapper app that you could then release on the App Store yourself. Their press release says they will allow for games "to be sold and marketed on the App Store," and that seems to us like there's compensation involved somehow, either through their portal, or through Apple's setup.

Very interesting. Unfortunately, most of this is forthcoming -- their development environment is available for a free download right now, so you could start working on creating your masterpiece right away if you want, but you'd have to wait until sometime "in the next few weeks" to see what iPhone features they have planned. Part of the iPhone's draw as a programmer's platform is that it's relatively easy to develop for, and an environment like this promises to make it even easier and more accessible. Whenever you have a low barrier of entry to development, release, and sales, you end up with two things: a market possibly flooded with junk, but on the other end, lots and lots of creativity.

While the entire retail sector is in the doldrums of recession and reduced consumer demand, there's a shiny spot in midtown NYC with a big glass cube sitting on top of it. Apple's 5th Avenue store should replace that glowing Apple with a big ol' dollar sign, according to a report from Bloomberg News.

The story says that while overall retail sales in New York have fallen between 8 and 10% since 2008, and US retail sales for the first half of 2009 are down 9.2% from the same six months of 2008, Apple's retail operations are still holding steady.

In particular, the 5th Avenue store stands out; while Apple did not release store-by-store numbers, Bloomberg quoted an estimate of about $350 million in annual sales; that's $35K per square foot of the 10,000-sf store. By comparison, high-end jeweler Tiffany & Co. does only about $18K per square foot. That $350M number is lower than the New York Post's $440M estimate, but still astonishingly good business.

In a perfect world, every iPhone app would be free, fun, and washed in unicorn tears -- but alas, that's not the case (and just as well for the app developers trying to make money on the store). With more than 65,000 applications available, it's hard to tell what's worth the money and what isn't. In addition, developers are constantly updating their apps, changing prices, adding features and so on.

BargainBin [iTunes Link] is here to help (and it's free). The free application constantly watches over the App Store and lets you know when items go on sale. In the latest update of the app, you can now even receive push notifications whenever a price drop or sale occurs. In addition, you can view screenshots and descriptions of the apps right within BargainBin.

Users can set up a "watch list" that will inform them of changes to specific apps they're looking for or you can broaden your scope and have BargainBin keep you informed on changes to your favorite type of apps instead.

Sporting a nice custom interface, many customizable settings and filters as well as push notifications, BargainBin is a great addition for those looking to score great apps for low prices.

Here's a few shots of BargainBin in action:

Apple's quarterly earnings aren't the only bits of good news going around: according to Betanews, the market research firm NPD has found that Apple's revenue market share in the premium price segment (computers costing $1000 or more) is 91 percent, up from 88 percent in May.

Not only is this good news for Apple, it is a continuation of a positive trend: their premium revenue share is way up from the first quarter of 2008, when their cut was about 66 percent. However, most original equipment manufacturers and Microsoft prefer to measure success by unit market share, or how many individual computers were moved regardless of price. Gartner and IDC place the unit market share of PCs running some version of Microsoft Windows at 90 percent, while Macs have 8.7 percent.

Breaking down the numbers, this news isn't too surprising. According to NPD, the average selling price of a computer sold at retail in June was $701. Splitting this figure into Macs and PCs gives an ASP of $515 for any Windows PC sold. A Mac, on the other hand, has an ASP of a whopping $1400.

Considering that Apple chooses not to wage the netbook price war and that the bulk of PCs purchased cost less than $1000, it makes sense that Apple would control the premium segment. They were also able to boost their sales figures in this bracket by lowering the high-end prices $100 or more on each model while keeping all but one computer in the $1000+ segment. But hey, we'll take good news however we have to slice it, right?

[via The Loop]

Apple announced today in a short press release that it had sold distributed 1.5 billion iPhone and iPod touch applications during the App Store's first year of existence.

Despite the slow economy, App Store sales downloads appear to have accelerated since last year, showing a fairly positive polynomial trend. Apple is selling offering (via a packet-switched network) apps roughly five times faster than it did when the store opened.

The App Store now features 65,000 apps available to users in 77 countries. The iPhone Developer Program includes 100,000 members, too.

(Chart sources: 1, 2, 3, 4.)

Keeping an eye out to the we-think-we-hope imminent economic recovery in the US, survey purveyor ChangeWave is seeing a bit of an bump in anticipated overall corporate PC purchases; in particular, the Mac-buying numbers are up. This month, 9% of responders say they expect their companies to buy Mac laptops in the next quarter, and 7% expect Mac desktop purchases -- a 1-point and 2-point uptick from the previous month's survey.

ChangeWave's methodology emphasizes the expectations of buyers, so it can drift away from the actual reality of purchasing budgets, but it does help measure the attitudes of corporate users. Separate and apart from business purchases, there's another Apple product that's resonating with personal buyers; the other ChangeWave survey published this week shows enormous consumer demand for the iPhone 3GS, with 44% of the respondents who plan to buy a smartphone in the next 90 days expecting to buy themselves an iPhone.

[via Ars Technica]

It's a good thing Gene Munster shaded his anticipatory numbers a bit over the weekend, otherwise he'd be in the market for a new crystal ball. As mentioned yesterday, the signs were pointing to a bigger opening weekend for the latest handset from Apple, and the results did not disappoint: in a company press release this morning, Apple announced sales of 'over a million' iPhone 3G S units through Sunday 6/21. Also noted in the brief release were the six million downloads of the iPhone 3.0 software update; no details on the number of iPod touch users who have also updated.

In addition to the raw number -- impressive enough -- there are two other tidbits in this release that bear mentioning. One, it's got a quote from Steve Jobs; this reinforces the notion that El Jefe Esteban is on his way back to the iCEO seat on a more active basis, as reported in the Wall Street Journal on Friday. Two, it looks like bloggers and journalists aren't the only ones having a problem with the odd spacing on Apple's latest product name; the press release repeatedly refers to the new phone as the "iPhone 3GS." We feel your pain.

[via AllThingsD]