Once a thought leader and titan of technology, Research in Motion (RIM) has fallen through the ranks over the past several years to the point where it’s now trailing far behind its largest competitors. Decreasing worldwide sales, open pleas for change from high-level employees, much delayed management changes, and increased competition from rival mobile manufacturers has crippled RIM and further diminished its ability to regain its stature as a leading mobile manufacturer.
The BlackBerry suite, known for its prestigious e-mail and enterprise level applications, and once a rivaled platform across the industry has been marred by recent attempts to bring the RIM product mix up to speed. From the BlackBerry Storm to the PlayBook, RIM devices have experienced great difficulty establishing themselves as serious competitors in the mobile device market due to failure to meet consumer expectations in terms of functionality and accessibility time and time again. As RIM continues to struggle to adapt to both internal organizational changes and those within the market, Chitika Insights sought to investigate the relationship of these trends and their level of impact on RIM’s web browsing market share.
To quantify this study, Chitika Insights analyzed a series of impressions each month, from September 2011 until March 2012. Within these data sets, the user agent from hundreds of millions of impressions from the Chitika Ad network were analyzed to determine an approximate web browsing market share of RIM within the mobile device market. A graph displaying the directional trend of RIM’s market share can be seen below:
The chart above details a significant decline in RIM’s web browsing market share since September 2011, a time period which covers not only vital holiday season, but a rise in mobile activations seen on both iOS and Android. From a high point in October of 5%, RIM’s share of the market has fallen by over 4% to its current level of .66%. The largest concurrent drop occurred between October and November in which RIM saw a 3.5% one month decline. This overall trend of decline highlights the level of activity of its users and is exhibitive of RIM’s performance in the mobile industry as of late.
From what used to be considered the go-to device for businesses, tech-savvy users, and eventually anyone who desired to access e-mail on the go, what has caused the BlackBerry to renege its status but its marketplace position. A potential reason for RIM’s decline could lie in ineffective marketing campaigns, which focused too much on product differentiation, rather than stimulating consumer desire. Another possibility could lie in that RIM OS is not as developer friendly as competing platforms, and thus does not draw the talented developers required to create a healthy app-ecosystem. Thirdly, as of late, RIM has pushed several products to market which were buggy, and seemingly incomplete. Perhaps instead of focusing on pushing out a product to meet analyst estimates, taking that extra step to ensure the best product is put forth as possible, could help re-establish RIM’s position in the market.
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