Contrary to popular belief the iPhone is not the most sold smartphone in the United States. That title goes to the BlackBerry Curve who has pretty much maintained it’s seat on top of the smartphone hill of dominance since the quarter that the iPhone was introduced.
Based on U.S. consumer sales of smartphone handsets in NPD’s “Smartphone Market Update” report, the first-quarter 2009 ranking of the top-five best- selling smartphones is as follows:
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
What is more impressive than the BlackBerry Curve holding the number 1 spot is that the BlackBerry Storm and BlackBerry Pearl hold the number 3 and 4 spots respectively giving RIM 3 of the top 4 selling smartphones. No matter how you look at it, RIM is selling a lot more BlackBerrys than is Apple iPhones. No wonder Apple is looking to bring the iPhone to Verizon.
[Via Silicon Alley Insider]
by Robb Dunewood on February 24, 2009 · 2 comments
Granted, RIMarkable is a BlackBerry blog, however, we aren’t such BlackBerry fanboys that we wouldn’t let you in on a great iPhone sale when we hear about it.
Through then end of the month, Best buy is offerring $50 to $100 off the purchase price of an iPhone 3G for Best Buy Reward zone members with a two-year contract. Regular members get $50 off and Reward Zone Premium Silver members get $100 off. This means that you could get yourself an 8 gig iPhone 3G for $99.
I love my BlackBerry, however, a sub-$100 dollar iPhone is a heck of a deal.
[Via Best Buy]
It’s been just 3 months since the iPhone took the top spot as not only the best selling smartphone, but, the best selling handset seeing it’s share shoot up to 30.1% of all smartphones in Q3 last year. I remember some analyst saying that it was the beginning of the end for BlackBerry maker, Research in Motion.
Boy, what a difference can one quarter make. According to an IDC report commissioned by The Industry Standard, RIM saw it’s market share increase from 40.4% to 47.5% in Q4. Conversely, Apple saw it’s share drop from 30.1.% to 22.3%. BlackBerry market share increased almost exactly by what iPhone share decreased.
I am not saying… I’m just saying…
Om Malik, 15 year technology writing verteran, former senior writer at Business 2.0, and founder of the GigaOm network, has decided to drop his iPhone for the T-Mobile BlackBerry Curve 8900.
Om’s move to the BlackBerry Curve 8900, wasn’t because of a failing of the iPhone itself, but, because of a failing of the network that the iPhone runs on.
[click to continue…]
I can’t remember where I read this, but, Apple may actually sell more iPhones this quarter than RIM sells BlackBerrys.
Let’s think about that for a second. The BlackBerry is unquestionably the top smartphone out their right now, however, the iPhone may actually outsell the BlackBerry this quarter and Apple got to this point in less than two years. This is an impressive feat for even a company with Apple’s resources.
Knocking the price of the iPhone down to $200 was a brilliant move and had a bit of a Microsoft flavor to it if you ask me.
I don’t think that too many people that use both Macs and PCs would argue that the Mac has a superior OS, is more stable, and is easier to use than Windows, yet Windows still dominates in most homes where these very things would seem to matter most.
In the same vein, not many will argue that the BlackBerry, less web browsing, is far superior to the iPhone as far as everything messaging is concerned, simply just works all the time, and has changed how business users stay in touch and respond almost in real time to email.
I think that you could honestly say that the iPhone is to the BlackBerry what the PC was to the Mac 20 years ago in this sense. Apple isn’t going directly after corporate users just yet. They know trying to battle the BlackBerry on it’s home turf would be like bringing a knife to a gun fight. Apple is, however, going after everyone else, especially those that will become corporate users one day.
What Apple is doing is selling iPhone to consumers like mad and even though the iPhone is still little more than a novelty in most corporate IT environments, it will improve over time, especially when millions of new corporate users that already use iPhone personally are requesting it.
RIM seriously needs to look at lessons passed when setting their strategy over the next few years.
According to ZDNet Austrailia, HSBC is considering swapping out it’s current BlackBerry deployment and replacing it with the iPhone. The CIO of HSBC Austrailia and New Zeland, Brenton Hush, was quoted saying “We are actually reviewing iPhones from a HSBC Group perspective … and when I say that, I mean globally“.
In my other life I’ve dealt with HSBC quite a bit and let me tell you that they are always considering doing something other than what they are currently doing. I remember several years ago how they were considering moving to Linux desktops.
At the end of the day you’ve got to consider the “Why”. What does HSBC gain by switching from the BlackBerry to the iPhone? If they gain anything does it warrant a global rollout to a completely new platform. Buying 200,000 iPhones is the easy part. Everything that comes along with swapping them in and replacing all those BlackBerrys would take years and cost $10s of millions.
I am not saying that this won’t ever happen. I just can’t imagine it happening anytime in the near future.
Remember when Steve Jobs said that Apple wouldn’t make an iPhone with a slide-out keyboard?
Well that was until he realized that he simply wouldn’t gain ground in the business world on the BlackBerry unless he reversed his stance.
According to The Register, mobile operators are reporting that a corporate iPhone with a slide-out keyboard may already be in the works. Jobs is asking what if type questions. “If you had a keyboard version, how many would you take?”
From the BlackBerry side of things…
We already know that the BlackBerry Thunder is coming and it will be first BlackBerry with a touchscreen, however, like the iPhone, will not have physical keyboard. I expect many BlackBerry users will shy away from anything without an actual keyboard and this includes the BlackBerry Thunder.
Although I am glad that the BlackBerry Thunder is coming out on Verizon first, I’ve often wondered why RIM would allow the BlackBerry Thunder to be a lifetime exclusive on Verizon. I can only hope that this is because another touchscreen BlackBerry with a slide-out keyboard is in the works for the other carriers.
Just like it was inevitable that the a BlackBerry with a touchscreen would come out eventually, an iPhone with a keyboard just makes sense if Apple is ever to gain ground on RIM in the corporate world. If I were RIM, however, I would come out with a BlackBerry slider before Apple comes out with an iPhone with a slide-out keyboard. RIM should have all the advantages of creating a good slide-out keyboard that Apple had with creating a good touchscreen interface.
A BlackBerry with a slide-out keyboard is an area where RIM should lead the market as compared to reacting to it. That’s my opinion. What do you think?
[Source]
The iPhone Blog, sister site to CrackBerry.com, has just released a video comparing the iPhone vs. the BlackBerry Bold. I have to admit that it is pretty fair even though the review is done by someone in love with the iPhone enough to start a blog about it.
Come on, can you imagine someone so into a mobile device that they would set up a web site dedicated to it and spend countless hours talking about it?
I don’t think that anyone would question that the iPhone, with its SDK and upcoming native Exchange support, is trying to make inroads into the enterprise smartphone market currently dominated by the BlackBerry. There is no doubt that RIM is trying to make the BlackBerry more appealing to consumer users as well.
A question that I have and would love to hear your feedback on is which device will see more success in the other players market? Will the BlackBerry be a better bet with consumers than the iPhone will be with business users or will the opposite be true?
I’ve got my opinions, but, would love to hear what you think…
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{democracy:14}
