RIM’s Blackberry Phones Losing Shelf Space

By Thea Neuman (Google)

The market for smartphones is witnessing a giant leap, and in the rat race, RIM fears losing the battle with Blackberry. We all know that iPhone 5 has entered the market, and Apple is taking all possible measures to ensure a giant release. Also, Android enjoys a decent share in the market, and there is a strong buzz about Windows Phone 8 too. However, entry of Blackberry 10 devices seems to have lost its popularity.

To be precise, RIM’s carrier partners don’t seem to be keenly interested in the upcoming Blackberry OS anymore. In fact, many question, if the new platform from RIM actually made way in the minds of the carriers.

The market is abuzz with rumors that RIM might be written off, but there are many enterprises and carriers who are still in wait of the new platform such as Verizon. Most carriers are in favor of giving RIM a chance to make things work with Blackberry 10, but with a much realistic and practical manner. What most market analysts and experts found in their research is the fact that there has been constant declination in the sales of Blackberry with a massive decline in inventory as well. There are many carriers that have not registered any sales in Blackberry for more than a month. While for the month of August, sales were almost same as July for most parts of United States, but the sales are almost one fifth of figures that were registered in the first month of the year.

Going by these facts and numbers, if at all true, there are a lot of issues for RIM at the moment. Given the range of versatile smartphones from Apple and Nokia, as well as Motorola, Blackberry seems to have been showing the signs of aging. Blackberry 10 was supposed to hit marketplace by the end of this year, which is further pushed to 2013. By the time, Droid Razrs from Motorola, Lumia 920 from Nokia and the all new iPhone 5 will have the scope to make way in the minds of carriers who are already not so happy with the performance of Blackberry.

With all these points in place, RIM is certainly in a quandary for now. If currently, it fails to win over the minds of carriers, it would be extremely tough to get hold of consumers. The shelf space pressure is great on RIM, and unless something dramatic happens with Blackberry 10, there is not much that RIM will be able to do.

Amidst all these speculations and cold war in the smartphones market, RIM spokespersons say that the company just wants to focus on launch of BlackBerry 10, and they have ample confidence in the final product. BlackBerry 10 smartphones, according to the company, will be of supreme quality and will have a host of features that will engage users and carriers. Indeed, times seem to be rough for RIM for now, and the drama will only grow now that iPhone 5 has been launched.