According to Forbes, Motorola posted their phone sales today at 8.5 million units, some 300,000 less phones than Apple sold in the same quarter, positioning Apple as the largest phone maker in the US.

Apple became the world’s most profitable handset vendor in the third quarter of this year, reports Strategy Analytics. “We estimate Apple’s operating profit for its iPhone handset division stood at $1.6 billion in the third quarter of 2009,” wrote analyst Alex Spektor. That means Apple overtook Nokia, whose operating profit came in at just $1.1 billion.