Apple has overtaken Blackberry to become the second highest selling smartphone manufacturer in the world.

Apple sold 14.1 million iPhones in the 3rd quarter of 2010, while RIM who make Blackberry smartphones, shipped 12.1 million. Apple have seen huge growth compared to the same period last year when they shipped half as many smartphones. Blackberry also increased their sales by 45 per cent , but that wasn't enough to stop Apple overtaking them.

Apple has no doubt seen a boost from the launch of the iPhone 4 and the consequent reduction in price of the iPhone 3GS.

Nokia still remains in first place with a whopping 26.5 million handsets sold. However, they saw a 3 per loss in sales compared to the same period last year which suggest  the gap is slowly being eroded.

The thing holding Blackberry and Apple back might be the price of the handsets and we'd be interested to see what the statistics look like for just premium smartphones, which is an area where Nokia are struggling and have pinned their hopes on the success of the Nokia N8.