Despite the onslaught of rival smartphones like the iPhone, Android, and Windows Phone 7, Research in Motion will maintain the top spot when it comes to worldwide market share until 2015, according to a study from ABI Research.
The study found that RIM will lose market share by 2015. The research firm expects RIM’s BlackBerry to maintain 26% of the mobile operating system world market by 2015, matched by Google’s Android OS with 26%. Nokia’s Symbian OS will take 16%, Microsoft Windows OS 11% and Apple iOS 14%.
What do you think? If RIM continues to lose share as fast as they have for last two quarters they will lose their spot atop the smartphone market share hill much sooner than 2015. Can RIM do enough to hold their competitors off for the next 4 years or so? Time will certainly tell…
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It will all depend on how successful RIM’s upcoming QNX based OS turns out to be. If it turns out to be as good as they claim it’s going to be and if it’s easy for developers to develop apps for it and they launch some high end devices which have specs/features that can compete with the Android and iPhone, then they might be able to maintain their market share.
^Good point^ I am thinking the QNX OS they are developing will decide RIM’s fate, My bold 9650 will be up for upgrade in about 15 months. And I’m assuming by that time we will get to see how good QNX is and if it doesn’t put bb’s up on par or better with android or iphone, it’s droid for me!
QNX will be great for the techies. How interesting is the device will be what determines if consumers buy it in numbers. An also ran is not enough. As good as the Androids and iPhone will not be enough. BB will have to have something compelling. Simply interesting current (at the time) BB users will not be enough. Sure, you will get those who already have BB to convert to the new device. But, what will make the Android, iPhone, Palm, or Nokia user to shift or desire to shift. Right now Android and iPhone is “calling” Blackberry users to at least try them out. They will have to have something that makes folks want to move. I truly believe, if iPhone were on every carrier, the Android love would be less. Why? Because Android is filling in for some of these customers. They wanted a touchscreen smartphone and they didn’t want to join another carrier. Their only option is Android (and some feature phones) and Palm. You do notice that Palm isn’t exactly enticing anyone even though it has, by some accounts, a very compelling OS. So, the OS will be a piece in the puzzle, but it will not be enough on its own when referring to market share. The OS may keep BB users from jumping, but growth does not come from only keeping the current customer.
The QNX OS will also important for the masses. The OS helps determine how interesting the device is, how easy it is to use and whether or not developers will develop applications for it. Blackberry is losing a lot of customers right now because of their lack of new touch screen devices (besides the Torch) and because they don’t have as many apps as Android and iPhone. I agree that future Blackberries will need to have something compelling to entice Andoird and iPhone users to try them out. I also agree that if the iPhone was available on every carrier (especially Verizon), Android’s popularity would be a lot less. Like you (ja2bk) said, people are buying touch screen Android devices as a substitute for the iPhone. The reason why the Palm Pre didn’t entice anyone initially was because Palm made the mistake of launching exclusively on Sprint and waiting a really long time to launch on other carriers. Sprint was losing 1 million customers every quarter during the time that the Pre launched. People were not going to switch to Sprint to get the Pre like they did with the iPhone on AT&T. By the time the Pre launched on other carriers, it was already irrelevant and there were other devices with better features/specs than the Pre. When Verizon launched the Pre Plus, they had to throw in mobile hotspot service for free (which they usually charge for) and also drop the price to $50 just to boost sales. The Palm webOS devices also have the same problem as Blackberries. There just aren’t as many apps available for them as Android/iPhone. Notice how Microsoft wanted to entice developers to create as many apps as possible for their new Windows Phone 7 OS before it launched so they could have a decent catalog of apps available on the launch date. The availability of apps has become one of the most important things that determines the success of a mobile OS.
Not sure if they can be saved. QNX better be phenominal or it’s lights out for RIM.