According to an IDG report, year over year shipment growth for the BlackBerry grew by 35.7%. In Q3 ’08, 14.6% of smartphones sold worldwide were BlackBerrys. In Q3 ’09, 19% of smartphones sold were BlackBerrys.
In contrast, iPhone shipments grew by only 7.1%. Now, don’t get me wrong… 7.1% growth in this economy is pretty darn good. It’s 400%, or, 5 times less than what the BlackBerry did, but, still pretty good none the less.
[Source]
That’s an impressive number taken at face value but if you take it with the caveats that it should be delivered then it’s not that impressive really. iPhone is limited to single networks in most of the developed world and Apple are in the process of ending the agreements they have (with O2 in Ireland and the UK for instance) and opening up to new networks. A number of networks (Vodafone Irl and UK for example) are taking delivery of iPhone in Feb 2010 so expect to see a massive jump in delivery of iPhones in those two countries for Q1. This will be replicated around the world as Apple ends their agreements with single networks and starts rolling out to multiple networks in major developed countries.
RIM on the other had have handsets available to multiple networks across the globe and as more and more people move to smart phones then the obvious choice, for the time being, is a RIM product. However the massive push of Android II and the aforementioned roll out of iPhone to multiple networks will see their deliveries drop and considerably so.
My two cents.
I see your point but I think that it holds more weight with android as compared to the iPhone. From the start, Google was willing to work with whatever carrier that wanted to work with them and they aren’t demanding many of the concessions that Apple does which generally don’t allow iPhone carriers to see any kind of meaning profits from customers on an iPhone plan until well into their second year of service.
Why the need to try and stretch and skew the facts? Does it help to ease the ebb of sadness and desperation while watching Apple’s iPhone and andriod phones grab more and more market share from RIM’s BB models which suffer from a woefully outdated OS and UI? Not to mention the crutch of BlackBerry’s single point of failure design, a shortcoming and achilles heel which will always come back to bite RIM and sadly it’s customers in the ass.
I see your point but I think that it holds more weight with android as compared to the iPhone. the need to try and stretch and skew the facts? Does it help to ease the ebb of sadness and desperation while watching Apple’s iPhone and andriod phones grab more and more market share from RIM’s BB models which suffer from a woefully outdated OS and UI?