RIM BlackBerry continues death spiral

comScore has posted new figures for U.S. smartphone market share and to no one's surprise, Android continues to surge at the expense of RIM.

Android jumped to 36.4 percent share for the quarter ended April 30th, from 31.2 percent share in the quarter before it.

Apple moved to second place with 26 percent share, up from 24.7 percent in the quarter before it.

RIM saw the weakest move, falling to 25.7 percent share from 30.4 percent.

Microsoft, who just released Windows Phone 7 during the period, fell from 8 percent to 6.7.

Overall, there were 74.6 million smartphone owners in the US for the latest period, up 13 percent from the previous quarter.

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 3 Jun 2011 11:55

SomeBozo

RIP Winows Phone7. Too late for entry and not enough to offer over others.

3.6.2011 12:08 #1

hearme0

I look forward to the day that Blackberry goes away. Death to the company that enabled the coined phrase "Crackberry" and tethered everyone to work. Their product is inferior, boring, and frankly a P.O.S.

3.6.2011 12:11 #2

logola

These numbers could be a little misleading I think. It would probably be more revealing to see the actual number of BlackBerry devices in use. The smartphone market is exploding right now with new consumers using consumer oriented smartphones, which would make BlackBerry's portion smaller, but leave their business subscriber base the same size. I'm not saying they aren't losing customers, but I think that this should be considered.

3.6.2011 12:23 #3

domie

Totally uninterested in 3 month snapshot trend surveys , let's see the total number sold for each appliance and then we'll have an idea of how successful or not they all are.

3.6.2011 12:27 #4

DVDBack23

Originally posted by domie: Totally uninterested in 3 month snapshot trend surveys , let's see the total number sold for each appliance and then we'll have an idea of how successful or not they all are. I see your point, and it is valid, but when smartphone market expands 13% and your brand drops 15% in market share, the amount sold does not matter as much anymore.

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3.6.2011 12:36 #5

biglo30

They need to just release bbm for android and carry on trying to get back in the game.

3.6.2011 14:16 #6

KillerBug

Originally posted by domie: Totally uninterested in 3 month snapshot trend surveys , let's see the total number sold for each appliance and then we'll have an idea of how successful or not they all are. Actually, it is very important, as corporations work on 3-month quarters, and the CEOs get bonuses based on performance...a few weeks here and there isn't much of an indicator, even one quarter isn't a big indicator as CEOs often group all of their losses into one quarter in order to get larger bonuses for the other quarters.

RIM has been dropping for a while now; this isn't a CEO bonus game...and even if there are still more old blackberries in service than all other phones combined, that does not help the one thing they care about: Sales. The fact is that as these devices die off, the users are going to go into the stores and see android devices that are light years ahead of their old phones...and then they will try the blackberries out of loyalty, only to find that they are junk.

It is rather sad that the playbook is made by RIM; if it had android it would be great...I would buy one in the morning if someone rooted it and installed gingerbread.

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4.6.2011 01:44 #7

sonamlove (unverified)

Well RIM is one of the largest firms where i live, but when the locals start pointing out the obvious failings of the company, you know the last nail in the coffin is not far off.
RIM needs to address the following issues in order to survive:
i) improve the speed of their OS... the current apple and android phones make the BB look like a comodore 64.
ii) consider using the android OS on their phones! No one wants BB apps! with the android option you will at least retain some android users.
iii) release BB messenger accross platforms and charge a cheap download fee for the basic service. Competitors are already taking advantage of blackberrys stalling on this issue and thus Live Profile, Kik and others are filling the gap.

I wholely suspect blackberry will sit idle on these issues however and in two years time they will be but a Palm phone memory.

8.6.2011 13:31 #8

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