I hope you remember those iconic and handy smartphones with clicky keyboards that once reigned the market. Well, they are now steadily inching closer to their deathbeds. The era of BlackBerry has officially come to an end, as the latest Gartner report mentions that their global market share now amounts to nearly ZERO percent.
According to the report published by research firm Gartner, the total number of smartphones sold in the fourth quarter of 2016 amounts to nearly 432 million devices. Out of these, the highest market share was held by Android as usual while BlackBerry left everyone shell-shocked with its performance. And it is devastating to see this happen to the brand that popularised smartphones, starting with enterprises.
The once-popular Canadian hardware giant only managed to sell as much as 207,900 smartphones running its own operating system in the said quarter. The sales figures for this renowned brand reveals that it now holds close to a zero percent market share in today’s worldwide smartphone market. Well, it is not exactly zero but too close (it’s 0.0481%, to be precise).
The primary reason for BlackBerry’s market share for phones (running their own operating system) is tanking because the Canadian giant is no longer producing phones with its own BB OS. When sales for its smartphones, which held roughly 10% of the smartphone market at the end of 2007, started to rapidly decline, the company shifted its focus to Android a couple years ago. It now makes (or used to make) Android devices, namely Priv and DTEK series, running on Android.
But, it was a little too late for BlackBerry to re-enter the market which it had lost to iPhone and Android devices. And now, the company has also given up on its hardware ambitions and pivoted to a completely software-driven approach. BlackBerry has licensed other phone makers like TCL and Optiemus to design, manufacture, brand, and market their phones in the market
In contrast to the aforementioned figures, Google’s Android operating system still managed to lead the pack by capturing 82 percent of the total market. It managed to witness sales of over 352 million, closely followed by the usual second spot holder — Apple. Phones running the iOS operating system witnessed sales of close to 77 million in the fourth quarter, amounting to about 18 percent market share.
And if one closely looks at the sales figures, then you can guess the next smartphone brand is close to extinction soon (ahem! talking about you Windows Mobile). So, Microsoft should now also boost its efforts to increase Windows’ market share and provide some competition to existing players — which has always been their aim.
