Blackberry Storm not hurting iPhone sales
The Blackberry Storm has frequently been touted as a possible iPhone killer. New figures, recently released by ChangeWave Research, show that this is clearly not the case.
ChangeWave, an expert research network based in Lancaster, PA, released a December study, which clearly shows that the sales of the iPhone continue to grow at a faster rate than the RIM Blackberry line, including the new Storm touchscreen model, as reported by NewsFactor. Apple’s share of the smartphone marketplace has grown to 23 percent in December from 17 percent in September and just 12 percent in June, when the 3G iPhone was introduced, and only 6 percent in January of this year. The Blackberry share is still growing, but more slowly, from 40 percent in September to 43 percent on December.
The big loser in this month’s survey was the Palm, which has seen its market share drop from 18 percent to nine percent in 2008. Next worst was Motorola, with market share dropping from 7 percent to four percent. In terms of percentage loss, both Palm and Motorola appear to have lost approximately half of their market share over the last 12 months.
One measure of future market share is the purchasing plans of smartphone users. In this area of the survey, 39 percent of respondents said that they were likely to buy a Blackberry, up from 30 percent in September. Only 30 percent said that they would buy an iPhone, which is down from 34 percent in September. Conversely, only 33 percent of new Storm owners were “very satisfied” with their new smartphone, as opposed to 77 percent of the owners of original iPhones.
While these statistics can be seen as mixed in some ways, it is clear that Apple is not yet suffering from the RIM release of the Storm touchscreen smartphone. Instead, Palm and Motorola are losing ground while the iPhone line continues to grow rapidly in popularity. It is clear that the Storm is competing head-to-head with the iPhone in a two-way battle for market share that may last for a long time to come.
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