BlackBerry Might Have Slipped To Single Digit Marketshare

BlackBerry Might Have Slipped To Single Digit Marketshare

 

Crads on the table folks, RIM hasn't been doing too well lately and their recent earnings report for Q2 only added to their decline. Some quick numbers first: BlackBerry subscribers did in fact rise 40% to 70 million or so, which is the highest level ever. However, it's pretty much all downhill from there; net income dropped by a colossal 60%; average selling price dropped too, and operating margin fell from 21% to just 13%.

That looks pretty bad for RIM, but there's worse to come I'm afraid. An independent analyst, Horace Dediu, noted that RIM's global marketshare may have slipped into single digits during the past quarter. RIM managed to ship a total of 10.6 million devices, which is short of their own estimate of between 11 million and 12.5 million. It's even short of some very conservative estimates for RIM's performance. Dediu states:

In terms of the competition, 10.6 million units is less than half what Apple or Samsung sold in its prior quarter. It's also less than what HTC sold. RIM's volume rank will likely go to fifth place as a smartphone vendor.

To be clear the actual figures for global rankings will not be available for another month or so, but Dediu points out that with the general market trend of growing at 77% these sort of figures from RIM indicate that a single digit marketshare globally could very well be on the cards.