AfterDawn: News

RIM sees surprising growth in subscribers

RIM announced a surprise jump in subscriber numbers this week, giving investors a little bit of hope before next year's launch of the BlackBerry 10 operating system.

The company had a developer event yesterday to show off some new features of the operating system and proudly boasted that subscribers jumped to 80 million from the previously reported 78 million.



Although RIM has practically lost all of its market share in the U.S., they continue to be marginally successful in emerging markets with lower-end devices.

CEO Thorsten Heins said carriers and developers were giving overwhelmingly positive feedback for the new OS, which has been delayed for over 18 months: "We are making believers out of our partners. We are making believers out of those who had previously written BlackBerry off. BlackBerry 10 is our most important launch ever. And it is the most exciting launch I have ever led in my career."

The new OS will be faster and "smoother," featuring a better app platform for developers. Heins showed off a couple of features, called "Peek" and "Flow," which "enable users to access important features without leaving the current application or to move quickly to another function."

BB10 is expected to be launched in February alongside new devices.

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 26 Sep 2012 10:49

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• 4 comments

• molsen

  Yawn..... Middle to late January BB10 is pushed back again. Still want to make it perfect before release.....

  26.9.2012 14:11 #1

• bloke2000

  I wouldn't be surprised if BlackBerry have a come back in a year or two. Kids today are going for BlackBerry more and more, it may just be that the problems RIM see today that make their product more accessible to the younger generation could be their success tomorrow (not literally tomorrow ;-))

  26.9.2012 17:07 #2

• xtago

  Probably all the marketing done in Australia over the last 6 months.

  27.9.2012 02:28 #3

• mumra1st

  "marginally successful in emerging markets" doesn't obviously mean the Asian markets where RIM has 80% of the market or 4 out of 5 phones are a Blackberry. You would think the writers were paid by Apple or Samsung. I do see one growing trend here and that is with the middle school kids demanding Blackberry so they can message. Apple may have made a tactical error with new phone requiring all new peripherals. hmm

  28.9.2012 21:13 #4