According to mobile market analyst M:Metrics, the Treo 650 from Palm is the number one smart phone in North America with over 842,713 subscribers.

How can this be when we know that Research in Motion has well over 2.5 million BlackBerry subscribers in the United States alone. Well, there is a catch, of course.

M:Metrics’ May BenchMark Survey is not counting the total number of devices from a particular company, but, the total number for a specific device. Until the Treo 700w and more recently the Treo 700p, Palm didn’t release or sell any smartphones other than the Treo 650 for almost two years. Even though they have both CDMA and GSM versions of the Treo 650, the model number was the same.

Research in Motion, on the other hand, offers two or three or more BlackBerry models per wireless service provider. Although the total number of BlackBerry subscibers in North America dwarfs the total number of Treo 650s, the biggest number of specific model BlackBerry subscribers, comes in at just under 268,000 subscribers of the Blackberry 7520.

M:Metrics, Treo 650