Competition
The primary competitors of the BlackBerry are smartphones running Android and the Apple iPhone. BlackBerry has struggled to compete against both and its market share has plunged since 2011, leading to speculation that it will be unable to survive as an independent going concern. However, it has managed to maintain significant positions in some markets.
Despite market share loss, on a global basis, the number of active users of BlackBerry internet services (BIS/BES) has increased substantially between 2007 and 2012. For example, for the fiscal period during which the Apple iPhone was first released, RIM reported that they had a user base of 10.5 million BlackBerry subscribers. At the end of 2008, when Google Android first hit the market, RIM reported that the number of BlackBerry subscribers had increased to 21 million. Finally, in the quarter ended June 28, 2012, RIM announced that the number of BlackBerry subscribers had reached 78 million globally. After the release of the Apple iPhone 5 in September 2012 RIM CEO Thorsten Heins announced that the current global users is up to 80 million, which sparked a 7% jump in shares.
Read more about this topic: Black Berry Internet Service
Famous quotes containing the word competition:
“Sisters define their rivalry in terms of competition for the gold cup of parental love. It is never perceived as a cup which runneth over, rather a finite vessel from which the more one sister drinks, the less is left for the others.”
—Elizabeth Fishel (20th century)
“The praise of ancient authors proceeds not from the reverence of the dead, but from the competition and mutual envy of the living.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679)
“Competition has been shown to be useful up to a certain point and no further, but cooperation, which is the thing we must strive for today, begins where competition leaves off.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)