Research in Motion’s BlackBerry no longer sits atop the U.S. smartphone market share hill as it has been knocked down a spot to number two by the iPhone according to Nielsen’s numbers for October 2010. The iPhone has moved up to 27.9% share while the BlackBerry has moved down to 27.5%. Both RIM and Apple, however, lost share to Android who moved up to 22.7% with no sign of slowing down.

Perhaps a bigger issue for Research in Motion and the BlackBerry than its statistical dead heat with the iPhone is that feature phone owners looking to upgrade to a smartphone don’t want BlackBerry devices. Only 11% plan to get a BlackBerry compared to 28% wanting Android devices and 25% wanting iPhones. What may even be more alarming for RIM is that existing BlackBerry users don’t even really want new BlackBerry devices with only 15% looking to get a new BlackBerry.

[Readne]