An aggressive buy-one-get-one-free promotion by Verizon Wireless helped RIM's BlackBerry Curve move past Apple's iPhone to become the best-selling consumer smartphone in the U.S. in the first quarter of 2009.

The Curve also benefitted from being available on all four top U.S. carriers. According to wireless industry market research firm the NPD Group, RIM's consumer smartphone market share increased 15 percent to nearly 50 percent of the smartphone market in Q1 2009 versus the prior quarter, as Apple's and Palm's share both declined 10 percent each.

"We have been tracking the iPhone as the best selling smartphone for the previous two quarters, but in the first quarter of 2009, Verizon ran a promotion that if you bought a BlackBerry, you were able to get another one free, which was a very popular promotion, and as a result, the Curve moved into number-one slot ahead of the iPhone," said Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis for the NPD Group, New York.

The NPD Group compiles and analyzes mobile device sales data based on more than 150,000 completed online consumer research surveys each month.

Surveys are based on a nationally balanced and demographically representative sample, and results are projected to represent the entire population of U.S. consumers.

Smartphones, which represented just 17 percent of handset sales volume in Q1 2008, now make up 23 percent of sales.

Even in this challenging economy, consumers are migrating toward Web-capable handsets and their supporting data plans to access more information and entertainment on the go.

Based on U.S. consumer sales of smartphone handsets in NPD's "Smartphone Market Update" report, the first-quarter 2009 ranking of the top-five best- selling smartphones is as follows:

1. RIM's BlackBerry Curve (all 83XX models) 2. Apple's iPhone 3G (all models) 3. RIM's BlackBerry Storm 4. RIM's BlackBerry Pearl (all models, except flip) 5. HTC's T-Mobile G1

Sales figures do not include corporate/enterprise mobile phone sales.

The Palm Pre, which will probably be released in June, will not use the Palm OS, which will likely be phased out in favor of the WebOS.

"Just as we've seen the Storm and the G1 climb into the ranks of the best-selling smartphones, barring some major misstep by Palm and Sprint, the Pre should certainly generate quite a bit of volume, as Sprint has said it will promote it more heavily than any handset in the past," Mr. Rubin said.

"That marketing support will help move it into the top tier, because even though Sprint has been losing post-paid customers, it's still the number-three U.S. carrier, and if T-Mobile can push the G1 into the top 5, Sprint should have success with the Pre," he said.

"What we saw with the Curve is that a carrier can really change the scope of things through promotion, and if Sprint does something dramatic with the Pre, while it will be hard to take on the Curve, Storm or iPhone, which are being sold into larger customer bases, Palm can certainly make some waves."

Verizon Wireless and AT&T continue to be the two largest carriers in the U.S., with Sprint No. 3 and T-Mobile USA No. 4.

"Even though a lot of the focus is about trying to steal customers away from each other, most of the sales are to each carrier's existing customer base, so it does help to have a large customer base to drive that upgrade revenue," Mr. Rubin said.

"If you're a handset manufacturer, the Curve being number-one shows that you optimize your opportunity for sales if you're on multiple carriers, and Palm will ultimately have devices on multiple carriers in the U.S.," he said.

The Palm Pre will initially only be available on Sprint, while HTC's G1 on Google's Android OS is only available on T-Mobile. RIM's BlackBerry Storm, the No. 3 smartphone in the U.S. according to NPD, is exclusively on Verizon, while the iPhone is only available on AT&T.

Be that as it may, there are rumors flying around that Verizon is in the process of negotiating a deal to land the iPhone. However, that would be at least a year or two down the road at the earliest.

"There are a lot of variables in play, particularly given Tim Cook's recent comments on Verizon's CDMA network, so Verizon would not get the iPhone until it transitions to LTE, which will likely be 2010 or even 2011," Mr. Rubin said. "First of all Apple would need to rev up the iPhone to take advantage of LTE, and if that were to happen, there would be many new devices Verizon would have access to that would be more competitive with the iPhone.

"Right now, certainly the iPhone is unique in terms of its ability to draw consumers regardless of which carrier they're on," he said. "Consumers want that device, and in some cases they are more about it than what carrier it's on, so given Verizon's strong reputation for the quality of its network, some AT&T subscribers might consider switching back."

So what is the status of Google's Android operating system?

"For Android, it's important to have multiple handsets with the OS, but we just haven't seen that," Mr. Rubin said. "We have seen a couple of announcements, and if those handsets can get to U.S. carriers, it should pick up.

"If T-Mobile picks up the HTC Magic, essentially the G1 without a keyboard, that might help as well," he said. "Right now, even though Android has very good Web experience and a lot of capabilities, the G1 is a rather bulky device, much bulkier than the rest of the top-tier handsets with which it is competing."