RIM Grabs More Smartphone Share from Apple

Consistent with my observation a week ago about living in a BlackBerry nation, the NPD Group said Monday that Research in Motion (RIMM) upped its US market share to nearly 50% in 2009 Q1. Three out of five of the top smartphones were from the Ontario company. Now smartphones account for 23% of the market, unchanged since Q4.

The iPhone has fallen behind the BlackBerry Curve (sold by all four carriers) but ahead of the BlackBerry Storm (exclusive to Verizon (VZ)). NPD notes that RIM was helped by aggressive marketing by its cellphone partners. It singled out Verizon, which has been aggressively promoting BlackBerries with a 2-for-1 promotion.

As I’ve argued for years, by giving an exclusive to AT&T (T), Apple (AAPL) gave the majority of the market a reason to promote everything else. The largest US carrier, Verizon, doesn’t have an iPhone (yet), and so is promoting every other smartphone in sight: today BlackBerries, tomorrow Android, and perhaps sometime an iPhone, Palm (PALM) or Nokia (NOK) phone.

Disclosure: None.

Comments

[sleepy:]

Well - sort of. But maybe Apple's happy to be making more dollars than RIM from half the number of phones while RIM and others do the hard work of advertising, margin cutting and general pushing to convert the planet to using mobile computers instead of PC's or dumb phones.

Apple's hugely greater margins are driven by technical leadership. I find it unlikely that Apple will repeat Sculley's mistakes with the Mac, or that the market will remain static.

May 05 08:57 AM

[Roger Knights:]

To some extent, these things go in waves. RIM made its move a few months back, with new models. In June it will be Apple's turn. It should gain share through the end of the year.

May 05 10:17 AM

[brewer:]

RIM seems to get a free pass from Wall Street and analysts because of it's 'bidness' focus. Next iPhone will blow it out of the water (again). For Apple, it takes 3 or more of these showdowns before the wall street types (who have a very shallow understanding of tech, for the most part) to catch on.

RIM to me is just like Microsoft. In deep trouble, but the MS crew are only beginning to realize it. RIM isn't quite there yet. A lot of people still think the Blackberry can compete with the iPhone long term. Obviously, they haven't compared the two at all.

May 05 10:37 AM

[texasgolfer:]

ah, the continuing mantra of the jobsapplettes, all is well in well ville.

May 05 12:53 PM

[.crazylegs..:]

of course the apple fans have to come out in full force. i love the lack of understanding from apple lovers worried about RIM and Verizon and their strategy to use simple price elasticity to drive adoption. isn't the smartphone game in a land grab/adoption phase? so perhaps it might be smart for rim and carriers to pursue this strategy.

Nonsense above blasts the author, yet doesn't understand the economics of the "giveaways" to RIM's model. I guess he doesn't understand that verizon is subsidizing the phone, while they pick up a 2 year contract with data attached (arpu increases!) and RIM picks up a profitable handset sale plus the service revenues for 2 years (at 80% margins). yeah, that's a reason to blast the author, mr. nonsense! (btw, you come off as a jerk)

RIM will do just fine. these apple fans seem to actually believe every single person wants or likes an iphone. this is just not the case, and they get indignant, almost vitriolic, when someone writes anything to this effect (don't dare write a positive article about a competitor because you'll have to watch your back it seems). Joel has had some long and thoughtful posts on many subjects but for that first poster to blast him is ludacris, especially when the poster is wrong about this promotion having a significant deleterious effect on margins. just classic the levels of stupidity that are demonstrated when emotions take over. seems to happen often in the apple reality distortion field.

Joel, keep up the good work!

May 05 03:40 PM

[.crazylegs..:]

i really like how brewer, as a true authority on the subject, states that wall st knows nothing about technology. what a wonderful generalization. stupidity is laughable. i wish rim's mkt cap approached msft's before they "realize" they are in trouble!

May 05 03:42 PM

[another.ana...:]

crazylegs,

I got a feeling it isn't only your legs that are crazy.

Ayuh

May 05 05:31 PM

[.crazylegs..:]

Ayuh,

I got a feeling you love Apple. Exactly the type of people I was referring to in my "crazy" post. Take your kitchy comments elsewhere if you don't want to add to the conversation.

crazy crazylegs

May 05 06:05 PM

[jmmx:]

Hey hey old man

If you are going to dish out the vitriolic attacks, then you need to be able to take the push-back. It is not for you to decide who can post here.

IMHO

On May 05 06:05 PM .crazylegs.. wrote:

> Ayuh,
>
> I got a feeling you love Apple. Exactly the type of people I was
> referring to in my "crazy" post. Take your kitchy comments elsewhere
> if you don't want to add to the conversation.
>
> crazy crazylegs

May 06 01:56 AM

[.crazylegs..:]

No worries, I can take the attacks. What I can't understand is the comments from certain individuals who post things that are factually incorrect due to some weird emotional attachment to one company or another. Like those who look at a price elasticity play and immediately trash RIM's margins not understanding the model. Substantive conversation would be nice instead of the apple fans (of which I count myself one with an iphone, mb air, imac, appletv, iopods, etc, etc) that many times just are in attack mode off the bat without any fundamental understanding of the situation.

On May 06 01:56 AM jmmx wrote:

> Hey hey old man
>
> If you are going to dish out the vitriolic attacks, then you need
> to be able to take the push-back. It is not for you to decide who
> can post here.
>
> IMHO
>
> On May 05 06:05 PM .crazylegs.. wrote:

May 06 10:36 AM

[KenC:]

Of course, giving an exclusive to AT&T has driven everyone else to another handset. That goes without saying. The part missing is the context. There's a reason Apple HAD to give AT&T an exclusive. So, arguing that you are so smart is rather pointless when Apple had no way to follow your sage advice.

May 06 07:16 PM