Non-player to a strong third place in three years. Not bad at all, especially considering that Apple only sells phones with AT&T in the US.
And in the bigger scheme of things - the entire cell phone market - Apple is WAY down the list
Apple doesn't care about the entire cell phone market, just like Apple doesn't care about the budget computer market. There's more profit margin in the high-end.
Media infatuation and market share do not necessarily go hand in hand.
Market share and profits do not necessarily go hand in hand. See Dell, big market share, poor profits. Apple is going for the profits, which is what companies are supposed to do. What use is a big market share if it doesn't make you much money?
Android has gone from non-player to a strong 4th place in just 2 years...;)
The iPhone is a good device, but it's only moderately successful when you look at the Smartphone market. Too many confuse the current media hype over the iPhone as market dominance (I believe that was a word used earlier) when the reality is that it still has a way to go to have any shot at all at the top dog (Nokia, with ~3 times the market share).
Just to put this in perspective: Apple has sold about 50 million iPhones since the introduction, back in January 2007. That's a lot of iPhones!
However, 50 million phones would be a good MONTH for Nokia.
So it's 3.5 years of sales, or ~5 weeks of sales. There's a HUGE difference there.
Market share and profits do not necessarily go hand in hand. See Dell, big market share, poor profits.
See Microsoft - big market share, huge profits. Hewlett Packard - monster market share ($114 billion in sales - more than Apple and Microsoft combined) and also big profits (more than Apple, less than Microsoft).
Big market share may not guarantee big profits, but it makes it a LOT easier to do so!