iPhone 5 Concept
Continuing the media's iPhone 5 guessing-game a new report has suggested that Apple's newest entry into the iPhone franchise will hit stores this October. Render Creativity

New research indicates that Apple's ongoing dominance of the smartphone market may eventually turn what is currently a full on derby, into a two horse race between it and Samsung.

iPhone Dominance

The true scale of Apple's dominance was reported in a recent paper by ChangeWave Research.

The research reported that of the 4,163 surveyed consumers planning to buy a smartphone in the next 90 days, 46 per cent planned to buy an iOS running device. Trailing behind in second place the research found that 32 per cent were planning to buy a Google Android powered device.

The paper's findings were subsequently lent credence by Apple's recently released quarterly financial figures.

Apple saw record profits this quarter, due in no small part to a doubling in its number of iPhone and iPad sales.

The report also showed a marked growth in Apple's profits. Apple's net income was just over 124 per cent higher than it had been three months prior, taking in $7.31 billion.

Exceeding expectations, the company reported selling more than 20 million iPhone devices and 9.25 million iPad tablets this quarter.

BlackBerry Job Cuts

Running in the opposite direction, BlackBerry devices have fallen out of favour, leading to company wide losses and, most recently, the culling of 2,000 of its permanent staff.

The news broke earlier this week when BlackBerry maker Research in Motion revealed that it was planning to cut 11 per cent of its staff to compensate for its ongoing poor financial performance.

Equating to roughly 2,000 cuts, the redundancies were announced today as a part of RIM's ongoing "Cost Optimisation Programme". It will be the first time the company has been forced to cut its staff in nearly a decade.

The statement published by the company about the cuts clarified:

"In addition to the management changes outlined above, RIM today provided further details on its cost optimization program, which is focused on eliminating redundancies and reallocating resources to focus on areas that offer the highest growth opportunities and alignment with RIM's strategic objectives.

"The workforce reduction is believed to be a prudent and necessary step for the long term success of the company and it follows an extended period of rapid growth within the company whereby the workforce had nearly quadrupled in the last five years alone. As part of this broad effort, RIM is reducing its global workforce across all functions by approximately 2,000 employees."

The cuts are generally seen as a reaction to the company's continuing poor performance against Apple iOS devices.

As a result of the announcement RIM's U.S. stock dropped a further two per cent before the market opened and was going for just $27.40 on the Nasdaq just before it opened.

LG Struggles

The tech company LG has also reportedly suffered a slew of financial problems as its new smartphones continue to fail to wow users or reviewers when compared to Apple's sleek iPhone handset.

In response to its ailing fortunes LG was earlier this month forced to slash its original sales targets for the year from 30 million smartphone sales to 24 million. It also dropped its shipment goals from 150 to 114 million.

The news comes after a year of poor financial performance. Compared to Apple, which in the last quarter alone sold more than 20 million iPhone devices, LG only managed to sell 10 million in both Q1 and Q2.

The company has since confirmed its ailing fortunes, reporting its fifth quarterly loss in a row.

Courts Rule Against HTC

Disturbingly HTC, a company with handsets that have impressed users and managed to boast high sales, has also run into trouble thanks to Apple.

In a recent patent dispute case with Apple, the U.S. International Trade Commission ruled that HTC designs did infringe on two Apple owned patents. If the ruling remains then the import of certain HTC smartphones could be banned by the U.S.

The ITC's ruling led to a seven per cent drop in HTC's shares value.

The share value drop forced HTC to instigate a new plan to buy back some of its listed equity. This will involve it buying back 2.4 per cent of its listed shares -- roughly 20 million in total.

While the courts ruling won't be set in stone until the committee makes its final decision on 6 December, should the ruling stick HTC will be in dire financial trouble. The company would be forced to either shell out hefty sums of money to Apple for the use of the patents, or accept that some of its top-end devices won't be available in the U.S.