Generally when one thinks of phones, their mind automatically goes to phones that run Android or phones like the iPhone. It’s for this reason that it was (and still is) quite difficult for BlackBerry to gain a foothold in the market. I’ll discuss stats later on, but suffice to say that Android and Apple are the dominant leaders in the market, with BlackBerry trying to nip at their heels.

It’s a real shame too! BlackBerry has some great phones out there. The BlackBerry Passport springs to mind. Classic keyboard, great specs, solid screen size an incredibly durable, it’s disappointing to see BlackBerry falling behind its competitors. BlackBerry wasn’t short on great ideas too. BlackBerry Messenger was a big hit back in the day, it seemed as if everyone was using it.

So let’s take a look at some stats:

–          March 2003, there were 534,000 BlackBerry subscribers

–          March 2008 there were 14,000,000 BlackBerry subscribers

–          A high was reached in December 2012 where BlackBerry hit 80,000,000 subscribers

–          This has been dropping since this, June 2013 there were 72,000,000 subscribers

–          Despite an increase in subscribers over time, their market share has plummeted. In 2011, BlackBerry accounted for 43% of smartphone shipments to Indonesia in 2011. In 2014, this number has dropped to only 3% (this is reflected in other countries, only 0.6% in North America)

It’s not a matter of opinion whether BlackBerry is still a massive competitor, it’s clear that they aren’t. BlackBerry even tried to enter the tablet market when Apple launched their iPad, however the PlayBook Tablet made dismal sales and fell completely flat. Share prices have also continually fallen from 2008 at $144.56 to less than $10 in 2012. BlackBerry was eventually bought out by investors for $4.7 billion.

What do you guys think? Do you think BlackBerry still has a place in today’s market? Or do you think it deserves to be completely dominated by Android and Apple devices?

Contributed by 7ThingsMedia