Since the iPhone 4S became available, it's been clobbering a lot of sales records, but the number other smartphone makers should keep an eye in this one: Almost a quarter of the buyers around the world told Reuters they were walking away from Android, BlackBerries and Nokias in favor of the iPhone. Reuters conducted an informal and small poll -- just a 127 people. But Jason Hiner at TechRepublic says statisticians have told him the past that more than 100 can be meaningful if they were picked in the right way. So Reuters's this isn't definitive by any means, it's certainly worth paying attention to. The numbers should be especially worrisome to RIM. Twenty eight of the folks Reuters spoke to said they were switching to the iPhone from another device, some of them pointing out they were BlackBerry users. For them, RIM's outage last week was exquisitely timed.  As for Nokia, a customer in Sydney said he thought the company had "lost their way in terms of interface and everything." Besides, he added, most of his friends use Apple. On top of all that, there's much to recommend the 4S to business users. RIM still claims to be a player in that market, though Apple says 93 percent of the Fortune 500 is testing the iPhone. Plus, Gartner says Apple's market share for mobile phones globally rose from 2.4 percent to 4.6 percent in the second quarter, measured year over year. Take heart, RIM. In another not-so-scientific poll, the Guardian says a third of the people who bought the 4S in one of London's Apple Stores said they'd have bought a BlackBerry if the iPhone didn't exist.  (Unfortunately under the same circumstances, more than half said they'd have bought an Android device. ) And, of course, iOS has a long way to go before it truly threatens Android. In the second quarter, Google's OS held 62 percent of the mobile phone market (remember Apple's 4.6?). Things may get even more interesting when Google and Samsung unveil the Nexus Galaxy Ice Cream Sandwich on Wednesday in Hong Kong (10 pm Tuesday night Eastern Time). Photo: The Daily Mail