It was only a few days ago we discussed how the iPhone was growing in its third place status, but still lagged behind Research in Motion's Blackberry and Nokia's smartphones globally. In smaller markets, though, the picture is a little different.

According to research by market analysts Canalys, while Apple's sales only accounts for a paltry 13.7% of the global smartphone market and 23.3% of the US market (compared to RIM's 20.9% and over 50%, respectively), in Europe there's a different story. There, RIM is held to just 10.3% of the market while Apple is in second place with 13.6%.

While both smartphone manufacturers' market share pale beside Nokia's (44.3% globally, 64% in Europe), Apple continues to show impressive growth in 2009's second quarter. In Europe, Nokia sales shrunk by .1% from second quarter of 2008 to the same time this year, while Apple posted an astonishing 1,041.6% growth in Europe over the same time frame.
 
Similarly, Apple grew 626.9% globally over that period while growing 365.4% in North America. These figures, as mentioned earlier, are a market snapshot taken before Apple released the iPhone 3G S and cut the price on the low-end iPhone to just over $100. With numbers this good going into the third quarter, those later figures are primed to look awesome.