Assuming BlackBerry's annual sales were trending up YoY prior to the start of the graph in this article [1] (IMO a safe assumption), then Apple sold more iPods [2] than Blackberry every year starting at least by 2004, 3 years before the first iPhone. They were never a "tiny company" in comparison to BlackBerry.

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/blackberry-phone-sales-decli...

[2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ipod_sales_per_quart...