Sunday, May 3, 2009

The rise of the Blackberry



A recent study conducted by Strategy Analytics on Smartphone market shares in the enterprise segment of the US markets has brought forward some interesting results. Contrary to expectations, the Apple I Phone, Symbian foundation and Google Android are not the hot properties as far as Enterprise segment Smartphones are concerned.The smartphone crown in the enterprise space belongs to Blackberry with 36% market share of the enterprise segment. Blackberry is followed by Windows with 27% of the smartphone market. Not only that, the Blackberry dominates the best selling smartphones (NPD group's latest smartphone ranking) in US (list below), RIM’s consumer smartphone market share increased 15 percent to nearly 50 percent of the smartphone market in Q1 2009 versus the prior quarter, as Apple’s and Palm’s share both declined 10 percent each.
RIM Unseats Apple in The NPD Group's Latest Smartphone Ranking
1.RIM BlackBerry Curve (all 83XX models)
2.Apple iPhone 3G (all models)
3.RIM BlackBerry Storm
4.RIM BlackBerry Pearl (all models, except flip)
5.T-Mobile G1
RIM Unseats Apple in The NPD Group's Latest Smartphone Ranking
Smartphones, which represented just 17 percent of US handset sales volume in Q1 2008, now make up 23 percent of sales. Even in this challenging economy, consumers are migrating toward Web-capable handsets and their supporting data plans to access more information and entertainment on the go. Backberry catapulted itself to the top in smartphones basis a wider range of its carrier network (4 for Blackberry versus 1 for Apple iPhone) and a smart give away promotion.

Blackberry has been able to capitulate on its no nonsense office assistant position very aggressively and with some support from President Obama's penchant for his devices, Blackberry has seen some phenomenal growth in 2008 - 2009. It evens finds itself listed in top 20 (ranked 16th) and only next to Nokia (in handsets) in Millward Brown's Brandz 100 most valuable brands. No mean task this for Blackberry!

Ref Reports:
http://www.npd.com/press/releases/press_090504.html
http://www.moconews.net/entry/419-research-in-motion-says-second-blackberry-storm-on-horizon/