After all the hoo-hah over Antennagate, Apple has released its results for its fiscal 2010 third quarter ended 26 June, 2010. The company posted record revenue of $15.7bn (£10.26bn), and net quarterly profit of $3.25bn. This compares with revenue of $9.73bn and net quarterly profit of $1.83bn for the same quarter, 2009. Gross margin was 39.1 per cent, compared to 40.9 per cent for the same quarter, 2009. Apple sold 8.4m iPhones in the quarter, 61 per cent up year-on-year. Sales of iPads in the quarter totalled 3.27m.

“It was a phenomenal quarter that exceeded our expectations all around, including the most successful product launch in Apple’s history with iPhone 4,” says Apple CEO Steve Jobs. (Discuss – Ed.) “iPad is off to a terrific start, more people are buying Macs than ever before, and we have amazing new products still to come this year.”

What Apple fails to mention, however, is that the iPhone sales figure of 8.4m is down on the 8.75m sold in Q1, 2010 and also on the 8.7m sold in Q4, 2009. Mobile market-watcher Tomi Ahonen has pointed out that iPhone is losing market share to all major rivals, including, at a platform level, Android and RIM, and at the handset-maker level, to HTC, Nokia, Samsung and Motorola.

Ahonen adds that his forecast earlier this year that Apples market share globally has peaked and is in decline turned out to be true. Apple market share is down to 14 per cent from its peak of 17 per cent in Q3, 2009. HTC, on the other hand, has grown, and is starting to close on Apple for third place among the biggest smartphone manufacturers. RIM has also grown unit sales and market share, and despite its recent troubles, Nokia continues to lead the smartphone market. Nokia is due to release its latest results tomorrow. The total global smartphone market has grown by 10 per cent over the past six months.  
You can read more of Ahonen’s incisive analysis of the smartphone market here.