Blackberry’s future is uncertain with the company rapidly losing market share, cutting employee numbers and incurring a 68% decline in stock prices year to date. The company is looking to its Blackberry 7 OS to stabilise sales as they launch 3 new phones using it.
Ovum’s Principle Analyst Tony Cripps believes Developer support and application development is pivotal for the struggling Canadian brand.
“Given that smart devices are increasingly sold to consumers as much on a promise of what those devices can deliver in terms of applications and services as they are on their design, RIM needs to be lobbying big consumer brands hard to embrace and promote BlackBerry 7 OS as much as it can.”
A study on mobile phone brand loyalty noted by PCmag revealed 67 per cent of Blackberry’s customers plan to defect the brand for an iPhone, with 26 per cent of them buying another BB. And who can blame them when Apple claims to have 425,000 applications supporting it.
At one stage the Blackberry brand was the only one synonymous with business and complete email functionality. Obsessed Blackberry users were commonly called ‘Crackberry’s’ due to their compulsion like attachment to their virtual companion. But the relatively standardised iOS platform has drawn developers and users alike, usurping customers from the struggling brand as it slowly circles the drain.
