Manufacturer that's meant to be dead is #1 UK Smartphone vendor for the 2nd year running (That's RIM, in case you were wondering)

A bit of news in from RIM this afternoon that’s sure to a) keep the RIM UK team smiling and b) require a bit of a reset from the hordes declaring RIM-is-dead when it clearly isn’t:

The latest results from data firm GfK show that BlackBerry® was the #1 selling smartphone in the British market for the second year running. It continues to dominate the market, grabbing 26.3% of December sales and averaging 27.7% through 2011.

The BlackBerry® global subscriber base grew 35% year on year in December to 75 million. The UK customer base is going from strength to strength with over eight and a half million active subscribers by the end of 2011.

This is good news for RIM. They surely need it.

I’m going to be posting more about them as I’m due an updated opinion post given the shenanigans over the last few weeks. The short version: RIM is down but most definitely not out. Depending on how the company responds to the new chap, I think RIM could come back very strong.