Fruit themed toymaker Apple has been opening the fizzy this weekend over the news that it is now the number two 'smart phone' maker in the world.

According to Canalys, the market data company, more than 39.9 million smartphones were shipped around the world in the July - September period, representing a 28 percent increase over last year.

Apple sold 6.9 million Jesus phones giving it a 17 percent share of the global smartphone market, putting it in second place behind Nokia  with 18.9 percent, but ahead of Crackberry, which recorded sales of  15.3 percent of the market.

The figures are partly due to the release of the iPhone 3G, launched in July.  Sales of this beast have slowed lately, as every Apple fanboy already owns one and the rest of the world thinks about saving their pennies.  Smart money says that Apple's market share will fall back next year, particularly when the Crackberry 'Bold' and 'Storm' models hit the shops this month.

Perhaps the real figure of interest in the Canalys figures is that Symbian has 46.6 per cent of the smartphone market and Windows Mobile is at 13.5 percent.  It shows that despite heavy competition, Vole and Apple are not doing as well as hoped in the business of providing OS's.