iPhone still manages to beat even the most optimistic expectations, however, it seems that Apple has a long way to overcome Research in Motion’s position in the increasingly competitive smartphone market.

Wednesday, after market close, Apple said it earned $1.33 versus consensus expectations of $1.09 and sold about 3.8 million iPhones ahead of consensus of 3.3 million units. This may be great news for Apple, but it is not enough to reach the lead position.

“Similar to the demand for RIM's BlackBerry, we believe Apple's iPhone sales continue to illustrate the continued demand for smartphone devices at the high end of the market” Blackmont analyst Lawrence Rhee said.

“We reiterate that RIM shipped over 7.8 million BB devices during its recent quarter, more than double what Apple shipped during [fiscal second quarter of 2009],” he added.

Perhaps the iPhone enthusiasm is slowly fading away as Apple has faced numerous problems that may determined possible buyers to look at the other way. In the other camp, BlackBerry still manages to sell smartphones by the millions despite lower popularity than Apple in some countries in Europe and other markets.