Blackberry’s Shrinking Market

RIM has lost nearly 1 million American users from March to May of this year, slipping from 20 million to 19 million users. During that same time frame Apple boosted the number of people using its devices by 3 million from just over 17 million users to just over 20 million. The number of customers using Android grew the most dramatically, from 22.8 million at the end of February to 29.26 million at the end of May.

RIM’s drop in market share could signal the end times for the revolutionary smartphone manufacturer, creator of the BlackBerry brand. After a lower number of sales of the BlackBerry Playbook than originally anticipated, BlackBerry and RIM rapidly adjusted projected sales figures for the upcoming year and discontinued production on a larger, more powerful version of the tablet.

However, the company has insisted that they only backed out of future tablet production temporarily in order to further develop their smartphone of the future, which has been dubbed the "superphone". Hopefully the ball will not be dropped when this superphone is finally released, as it might be the mobile company’s last chance to stay in the game with the big boys of Apple and Android.

The outlook for Blackberry and RIM has only grown bleaker since the quarterly reports have been released. After a statement from Wall Street said things couldn’t get much worse for the company, they did. Share prices fell to $20 each and the valuation dropped severely to .7x, a very low figure by any standard, let alone for what was once the world’s top dog in the smartphone market.

The developments are all a bit sad, really, as the Playbook tablet is actually a very well-done device, even though it was released a bit prematurely with a few bugs still to be worked out. The tablet has a great processor, very good touchscreen capabilities, and the operating system is a huge upgrade from the typically off the wall systems found in many BlackBerry Smartphones.

Hopefully BlackBerry can bounce back with the impending superphone, for even though smartphones like the Torch 9800 are well-respected, a new wave of devices from BlackBerry will be a welcomed sight. As it stands now, they are third in market share behind Apple and the nascent Android, which is on pace to own half of the market in the near future.

The BlackBerry handset has always been a great, relatively straight-forward smartphone that is perfect for those who just want their mobile handset to function without all of the unnecessary frills. Be hopeful for a rebound, but maybe don’t hold your breath.