Is BlackBerry still relevant?
Everyone knows that today, iOS and Android dominate the industry when it comes to smartphones and tablets. It wasn’t that long ago when BlackBerry was a force to be reckoned with, with an army of devoted followers, much the same way that many people are fanatical about Apple today.
But in this modern era where there are basically two industry giants – Apple and Google, is BlackBerry still relevant any more?
BlackBerry hangs on
We’ve just come across some interesting statistics from 51 Degrees that reveal just how well (or not) the Canadian company is doing, as well as some key metrics about penetration and global market share.
Editor’s note: the statistics used in this article here were provided by Chris Bignell, Director of XL Communications Ltd.
Without further ado, here are the stats…
It turns that in the UK, almost 22% of BlackBerry owners use their devices to access the Internet, with the lowest being Germany:
You may not be surprised to hear that most BlackBerry devices in use are smartphones (%68) but there are also a surprising amount of the company’s tablets out there:
The most popular BlackBerry device is the Z10, closely followed by the Q10. There are still some older devices in use, such as the Curve 9320 from back in 2012:
The table below shows the percentage of web requests from each brand of device. Data excludes Apple and Samsung so the total here represents the total minus requests from those devices. BlackBerry has basically remained on around 1.5% over the past year…
Perhaps the most revealing statistic about BlackBerry’s market share is illustrated below, with the obvious peak of around 20% between Q4 2008 and Q4 2009, the golden era for the company when it seemed nothing could stop them…
Not a lost cause
The data presented above suggests that BlackBerry has hit the lowest point, and there shouldn’t really be any further significant reduction in the number of users assuming that no disastrous management decisions are made.
Lately, the firm has been trying to re-acquire the business and government markets, playing to their security and privacy concerns. It’s a sound strategy, and one that may be BlackBerry’s best hope, as well as leveraging its immense experience in apps and software.
Let’s hope that CEO John Chen can continue his mission to turn the company around, as I’m sure there’s a lot more great devices and software to come out of the company yet. And to answer the initial question of whether BlackBerry is still relevant, in my personal opinion – yes they are, and there’s certain to be a lot of new and innovative devices coming out of the company in future (there’s even rumour of a curved BlackBerry passport).
Update: you can read Ewan’s post on the BlackBerry Passport here.
Mobile Industry Review would like to thank Chris Bignell, Director of XL Communications Ltd for helping us to acquire the data used in this article.
