It is easy to understand why Google has been able to stay on top since so many manufacturers are able to use Android on their phones, but since the new iPhone 4S has hit the market Apple has been making up some of the difference, and now looks like it may be able to not only have the best selling smartphone, but also able to gain the top spot in terms of phones running its iOS operating system.

Before the iPhone 4S launched, Android controlled around 60% of the market, with the iPhone capturing a respectable, yet distant, second place with 26% of the market. That has drastically changed, and now iOS has 43% of the market, with Android sitting at 47%.  An impressive jump to say the least for Apple.

iPhone sales continue to dominate the market, and in November it held the top 3 spots with the iPhone 4S, 4, and 3GS.

Whether or not Apple is able to get the top spot in terms of operating systems remains to be seen. Based on the strong estimates for the number of phones it is expected to have sold during the holiday season, it could easily gain the top spot when December numbers are made available.

As you can also see, it has really become a two dog race in this highly competitive market. With two out of every three phones being sold today being iPhones, it is an important market to dominate. Research in Motion (RIMM) continues to suffer, with its market share falling down to just 6%, a far cry from a few years ago when it was the biggest player in the market.

The company reported that on December 12 it shipped more packages than any other day in the company’s history… around 17 million packages. That marks a 10% jump from its busiest day last year, and twice as many shipments as the company typically makes a day.

A big reason why FedEx is seeing such a busy shipping holiday season is the growing popularity of online shopping at sites such as Amazon.com (AMZN). Consumers are showing that they are still willing to spend, but perhaps they are shopping smarter, and spending more time online doing research and looking for the best possible deal before making their holiday purchases.

America’s other major shipper, UPS (UPS) also has reported that its shipping volume has grown compared to last year. UPS does far greater volume than FDX, and last year it had one day where shipments exceeded 25 million units. This year the company expects to see at least 5 days with such volume.

Whether or not the boost in shipments will relate to a strong holiday season for retailers remains to be seen, but it is definitely a positive sign.

The idea to spinoff the PC division was first proposed in August by former CEO Leo Apotheker as part of a sweeping overhaul he was trying to do to the company. This was one of the last proposals he made before being ousted from his position.

The decision to review the company’s PC business came as a result of a massive shift by consumers towards smartphones and tablet computers. HP launched its own high-profile tablet, th TouchPad, but it decided to discontinue the tablet just two months after its launch, doing a $99 fire sale on the tablets that techies gobbled up as fast as they could. HP said it would make one more round of TouchPads, some have estimated around 200,000 tablets, to try to make up for some of the high demand it saw during the $99 sale, but even the 200,000 additional units will not be able to keep up with the demand, and they too will probably sell out in a day or two.

HP is still the world’s largest PC seller, but revenues have been trending lower. During the quarter that ended in July, the company had PC sales of $9.59 billion, down from $9.92 billion during the same period last year. Despite this, HP feels as though it is still a very important part of the company and worth trying to save.

The decision to keep the company’s PC business is probably the best decision for the company. The PC business may be shrinking, but that does not mean that HP should abandon it. As Whitman stated, the goal is not to transform HP, but instead to take its incredible assets, and make them greater.

Whitman assured investors that HP was going to get back into the tablet business, but it is not going to backtrack on its decision to eliminate its WebOS operating system, but instead will focus on tablets running Microsoft’s (MSFT) Windows 8.

Time will tell if HP is able to turn its PC business around, but for now its probably the right decision to at least allow Whitman the opportunity to try.

Going into this afternoon’s earnings report, analysts had been expecting to see Google report third quarter earnings of $8.74 per share, but actual earnings came in well above estimates at $9.72 a share.

Revenues during the quarter were $9.7 billion, higher than the $7.22 billion that Wall Street had been expecting to see.

In addition to strong ad revenues, Google also has seen nice growth in revenues stemming from its highly successful mobile operating system, Android. Last year the company saw annual revenue of $1 billion from its mobile business, but says that it is currently on track for $2.5 billion as Android continues to gain in popularity and is now the #1 mobile operating system on the market.

Google also shed some light on the strength of its new social network, Google+. The company announced that it had 40 million users sign up with the service, with 3.4 billion photos being uploaded so far to the network. The numbers are greater than analysts had expected, and a good sign that Google is making some progress in its competition with social media giant Facebook.

The company also announced that it had added an additional 2,585 employees during the quarter, lifting its total workforce to 31,353.

Google’s dominance of the U.S. search market continues to grow. As of the end of last year, the company controlled 74% of U.S. searches, and by the end of this year that is expected to grow to 76%.

The stock is currently trading up $35.61 at $594.60 (+6.4%) in after hours trading.

Insurance companies win on one hand because they will have to pay out less in damages than they had anticipated, but they also win because the media hype was enough to give them an opportunity to raise rates next year on all types of property insurance.

Most of the damage incurred during the hurricane was flood damage, and unless you leave very near to the coast, chances are you do not have flood insurance on your property. Experts have estimated that damages due to Hurricane Irene would be around $2 billion, which is far less than the $6 billion in damages that the area experienced when Hurricane Isabel hit back in 2003.

Here is how a few insurance companies fared on the day:

• Allstate (ALL): +$2.06 to $26.30, up 8.5%
• Aetna (AET): + $0.93 to $39.16, up 2.4%
• Progressive (PGR): +$0.65 to $18.89, up 3.6%

The DOW finished the day up 2.2%, the NASDAQ was up 3.3%, and the S&P 500 was up 2.8%

As we noted in our Apple earnings preview, Apple was expected to post quarterly earnings of $5.36 for its fiscal second quarter this afternoon. Actual earnings came in well above estimates at $6.40 per share.

Revenues were also better than expected at $24.7 billion, while analysts were expecting $23.4 billion.

The quarter earnings mark a 98% jump from the same period last year, while year over year revenue growth was an impressive 83%.

Once again the iPhone was a huge success for the company, with 18.5 million devices sold during the second quarter alone, well above what analysts were expecting to see.

As we noted in our earnings preview, iPad 2 sales were a concern going into today’s report. Supply constraints have been weighing on the company and hampering its ability to meet strong demand for the tablet, and this did indeed impact quarterly sales of the new tablet.

Apple sold 4.7 million iPads during the period, which was below forecasts for between 6 and 8 million, but its strong iPhone sales more than made up for the disappointing iPad numbers.

Mac sales were up 28% year over year. iPod sales have been slowing down for Apple, and were down again this quarter by 17% year over year as consumers have been shying away from iPods and just using their iPhones and iPads to handle their music needs.

All in all, another great quarter for Apple, and the stock is being rewarded by after hours traders which have pushed shares up 3.6% to $354.84, up $12.43.

Going into this morning’s first quarter earnings report, analysts had been expecting to see State Street report earnings of $0.85 per share, but actual earnings came in above estimates at $0.88 per share.

During the same period last year the company had earnings of $0.75.

Revenues during the quarter were $2.36 billion, versus analyst estimates for $2.29 billion.

Assets under management rose 7.7% year over year to $2.1 trillion.

• Pier 1 (PIR) : Credit Suisse raised its price target on the stock to $13, while BB&T upgraded the stock to Buy from Hold. The stock is trading down 1.1%.
• Southwest Airlines (LUV) : EVA Dimensions, LLC upgraded the stock to Buy from Overweight. Stock is trading down 0.5%.
• Bristol Myers Squib (BMY) : EVA Dimensions, LLC upgraded the stock to Buy from Overweight. Stock is trading up 1.4%.
• Xerox (XRX) : EVA Dimensions, LLC upgraded the stock to Buy from Overweight. Stock is trading down 1.2%.

The company was forced to halt production following last month’s earthquake and tsunami that rocked Japan, resulting in a production loss of around 260,000 vehicles since March 14.

The 18 Toyota plants will resume at half capacity between the 18th and 27th, and then will halt again from the 28th through May 9 which is a time when plants would normally have been closed to observe the country’s Golden Week holidays.

Part shortages will remain a problem, with the company stating that it is still struggling to get around 150 types of parts, down from a previous shortage of around 500 different parts.

Earlier this week, the company stated that it will be inevitable to have to eventually halt production at its plants in the United States will it deals with its part shortages. The March 11 disaster destroyed the company’s parts factories in the northern part of the country, and then it was dealt another blow with electricity shortages resulting from the countries problems with its nuclear facilities.

The company gets around 90% of all its part components from its factories in Japan.

Ford benefited from sales in new and refreshed models of its vehicles, in addition to greater discounts than General Motors offered to its customers.

During the month, Ford sold 212,295 vehicles, versus 206,621 for General Motors.

The good news for General Motors is that its sales figures marked a 9.6% rise in sales… the bad news is that analysts had been expecting to see the company report a 20% jump in sales during the month.

Analysts had been expecting to see Ford post a 13% increase in sales, but its actual sales number represent a 16% increase for the month.

Beating General Motors is a major accomplishment for Ford, and something that it has only been able to accomplish twice in the past 13 years.

The auto industry is definitely starting to show signs of life. Industrywide, sales of light vehicles were a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 13.1 million, above the 12.9 million that analysts had forecast for the month.

The war of American car makers is still being won by General Motors, which outpaced Ford through the first three months of the year by a count of 592,545 to 495,508.