According to Research In Motion’s Q3 Sales Report released yesterday, the company has sold 40% more handsets than in last year’s Q3, as this figure equals 14.2 million BB devices shipped this quarter. RIM’s total revenue was an impressive $5.5 billion.

“A breakdown of the sales figures, however, reiterates that RIM is losing ground in the U.S. market as consumers and enterprises alike continue to adopt phones running Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android platforms…Yet, even with heavy competition, RIM is still growing revenues. How so? By finding growth outside the U.S.”

Despite its growth, RIM still remains behind Apple whose sales figures grew by 90.5% over the past year. RIM is counting on its upcoming Playbook due to hit to the market in Q1, 2011 to keep up with the competition, but nothing is guaranteed just yet.

After its Q3 sales exceeded analysts’ predictions, RIM’s stock went up by 3% to $61 by early afternoon today. This may be interpreted as a good sign for the phone and soon to be tablet maker, who also has some rumors surrounding it according to a presumption it may be acquiring social data aggregator Gist. The company claims it has profiles around over 100M people at present day which definitely makes it a prospective target for RIM.  Check out our interview with Gist CEO T.A. McCann here.