By Mike King
Call me nostalgic, but I’d kind of hoped Blackberry was going to be able to turn things around. I know the writing has been on the wall for a long time but I still have a fondness for the keypad and cheaper international roaming costs that set Blackberry apart from the rest of the smart phone world.
OK, the handsets are unreliable, battery life is ridiculously short and the need for businesses to set up and run separate Blackberry servers is antiquated and cumbersome, but I’ll still be sorry to see it go. Unfortunately, there’s little doubt that the end is nigh. Latest figures from research firm IDC show that in Q3 2013 only 1.7% of smart phones sold worldwide ran the Blackberry OS. That’s a 41% drop in market share for Blackberry when compared to the same period last year. Ouch.
Meanwhile, Android continues to go from strength to strength, hitting more that 80% market share for the first time in same quarter. Apple’s iOS and Microsoft’s Windows phone also showed significant growth, confirming that we’re well into a three horse race.
To put Blackberry’s figures into perspective, another research firm, TrendForce, calculates that a minimum of 3% market share is necessary for any smart phone manufacturer to remain competitive. Below this level, which equates to 35 million units shipped per year, the economies of scale are not there. So, in other words, last quarter Blackberry had close to half the market share it needed to stand a chance of competing. And its market share is dropping at a record rate.
Of course, Blackberry would say different and is pinning its hopes on new CEO, John Chen, who it claims can turn the company around. Meanwhile, details have just emerged of another Blackberry security flaw. I can think of less risky places to invest $1 billion.
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