The accumulation of sales data and web browsing statistics to date indicates that Apple’s iPhone sales success is starting to embarrass the competition in the U.S., according to Daniel Dilger at Roughly Drafted on Friday.

"In its first full quarter of sales, the iPhone has already climbed past Microsoft’s entire lineup of Windows Mobile smartphones in North America, according to figures compiled by Canalys and published by Symbian, wrote Mr. Dilger. The iPhone remains behind only the BlackBerry in the U.S. The figures are supported by additional data from NPD which shows the iPhone with 27% of 3Q sales of smartphones in the U.S.

Curiously, Symbian, which has been publishing numbers showing that it leads smartphone sales worldwide stopped publishing data when the iPhone launched.

The numbers are more embarrassing, however, for Microsoft. "The most recent market share numbers are particularly embarrassing for Microsoft, especially after CEO Steve Ballmer announced in January that Apple wouldn’t capture more than two to three percent of the market and described his own Windows Mobile platform as having or soon acquiring 60 to 80% of the smartphone market," Mr. Dilger noted.

To make matters worse, the Symbian and WindowCE systems are reported by Mr. Dilger as aging, difficult to work with, and poorly regarded. Also, while some had hoped that Google’s Android would take a bite out of the iPhone, the strategic positioning of Android has turned out to adversely affect everyone but Apple.

The analysis by Mr. Dilger is noteworthy for the work done in compiling sales numbers, presenting it in readable pie charts, and analyzing the mobile phone markets and vendor prospects both in the U.S. and worldwide.