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Tag: blackberry

  • Nielsen: Android Leads the Market Share in USA

    Android operating system seems to win the battle over iOS, at least in the American market share. At least, that's what a latest research says.

    According to Nielsen's research, 51.8 % of US users that own a smartphone are choosing Android as their operating system. Apple comes second with the 34.3% of the market share, while RIM by Blackberry is third with 8.1% of the market share. Although the figures might be surprising for some of you, in fact they shouldn't be.

    We all know that iPhones dominate in the industry, but we also know that Android is a big competitor. Although their constant battle does not always have a clear winner, in this case the numbers can be justified by the fact that Android is used by many smartphone brands. Also, the fact that Android smartphones are cheaper, at least statistically, than the iPhones, makes users prefer the cost-effective choice. Android's percentage of market share consists of Samsung, HTC, Motorola and other smartphones.

    On the contrary, when we are referring to iOS, we know that it's only iPhone that includes the specific operating system. Despite its higher price, iPhone is still in high esteem and that's why the stand-alone percentage of 34% should not be underestimated.

    After all, times are changing and we are not sure whether the numbers will be the same by the end of the year. We might not be able to predict the winner, and whether it will be a clear victory, but we can tell that the release of Apple's new iPhone and Samsung's Galaxy S III will affect the current graph.

  • BlackBerry Close to an End, RIM Prepares New Layoffs

    BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM) has announced it aims to reduce operating costs by one billion dollars per year, a plan that includes significant layoffs.

    RIM’s U.S. sales declined dramatically due to the fierce competition represented by the Apple's iPhone and Google’s Android OS, which is why RIM will terminate the contract with Celestica – phone parts manufacturer.

    Celestica is a Canadian company that provides parts and assembles terminals for several companies, including RIM. The company recently announced that it will stop producing parts for the BlackBerry manufacturer and for this reason it expects a loss of $35 billion.

    BlackBerry, along with Nokia, are the companies that have lost the battle against Apple. RIM recorded losses of $125 million in the first quarter of the year, while in Q1 2011 had a profit of $1 billion. Revenues decreased from $ 5.2 billion to about $4.2 billion and shares value decreased by 80% in one year. In comparison, Apple has announced for 2011 a net profit of $ 13.06 billion, mainly supported by the sales of iPhones and iPads, revenues reaching a record of $46.33 billion.

    RIM also fired 35% of its employees last year, thinking that this would be the right solution, but unfortunately the collapse continued.

    Besides Celestica, RIM will also terminate the contracts with other two companies, Flextonics International Ltd and Jabil Circuit Inc.

    “RIM has committed to achieve significant efficiencies and reducing operating costs during this fiscal year. Reducing the number of employees is part of this initiative,” said the company spokesman, Tenille Kennedy.

    RIM's reorganization process could affect between 2,000 and 3,000 jobs, as estimated by analysts at Northern Securities Toronto, under the premise that 30% of the announced cost reductions will be achieved by measures of employment and human resources. Also, Wall Street Journal, citing sources close to the company, claims that RIM fires for weeks groups of at least 10 employees.

    Canadian company plans to launch this year a new range of smartphones based on the BlackBerry 10 OS, through which hopes to regain market share.

  • Blackberry Maker Says It Plans to Release New Model First Before Disclosing Financial Figures

    RIM, the maker of the popular BlackBerry smartphone today said it was postponing its earlier scheduled disclosure of the latest company financial figures, preferring to go ahead first with the release of its awaited new BlackBerry 10 models.

    In a report by Reuters, BlackBerry maker Research In Motion said it was delaying its scheduled disclosure of financial figures to analysts set for May this year, instead setting the business meeting for later in 2012. RIM had typically released its financial report for analysts during the Blackberry World conference, usually held in the summer.

    RIM spokeswoman Tenille Kennedy told Reuters the company is deciding to focus instead on its worldwide customers, developers and partners as the Canada-based technology firm goes into the final stages of the impending public release of its new generation of smartphones to be led by the popular BlackBerry.

    Kennedy confirmed that the company is planning to set up a session separate from the product-oriented BlackBerry World conference in May that would target the interests of investors looking to RIM as an alternative investment focal point, at a point level with such smartphone leaders as Apple, Samsung, Nokia and LG. 

    Research In Motion had earlier announced its impending release of the new BlackBerry 10 editions which will use the same operating system of the company’s PlayBook tablet.  The PlayBook itself has not made a successful sales impact on the strictly competitive tablet market, led by Apple’s top selling iPads.

    The new RIM schedule, both for the postponement of the public release of its financial position as well as the marketing of the BlackBerry 10 models, has been interpreted by industry observers as the firm’s redoubling of efforts to come out with a competitive smartphone that would make use of powerful chipsets it said were set for delivery to its factories sometime early this year.

  • Almost Half of the U.S. Adults Have a Smartphone

    Smartphones are now more popular than conventional mobile phones among the U.S. adults, according to a study released on Thursday, confirming a trend of aggressive spread of these “pocket minicomputers”. 

    According to the study conducted by Pew Research Center University, nearly half ( 46%) Americans of at least 18 years old had a multifunction phone in February, compared with 41% who owned a normal mobile phone and 12% who never used one of the two.

    A study conducted in May last year concluded that only 35% of American adults had a smartphone, compared with 48% who used a traditional phone.

    Devices running the operating system developed by Google, Android, are the most numerous, being in the hands of 20% of the owners of this type of device, from 15% in May 2011. Apple’s iPhone is ranked second with 19% of users compared to 10% in May, clearly outpacing Blackberry produced by Research in Motion, which is in a deep fall (10% in May 2011 to 6% in February this year). Only 2% of the rest have a phone running the Windows Phone operating system, developed by Microsoft, a report unchanged compared to May 2011.

    The survey conducted by Pew Research Center showed that all demographic categories, men and women, young and middle-aged or third-aged, urban and rural, wealthy and less wealthy, they all participated at the smartphone phenomenon.

    The study was conducted between January 20 and February 19 on a sample of 2253 adults and has an error margin of plus or minus 2.7 points.

  • RIM Takeover: Microsoft, Nokia and Amazon Are Interested

    Bosses of Microsoft and Nokia have carried out several discussions in the recent months with the Canadians from RIM (Research in Motion), the manufacturer of BlackBerry phones, in an attempt to build extensive partnerships regarding the future of RIM, company whose shares have reached the minimum value of the last eight years.

    Amazon was also interested in the RIM takeover, but Canadians are determined to reject all the bids, following the idea that they can solve the company problems on their own.

    Discussions status is unknown, but the fact that this kind of discussions took place highlights the severity of the problems faced lately by RIM.

    The company posted results below expectations in Q4, while RIM shares are trading now at a value of more than four times less than 12 months ago.

    Currently, RIM capitalization is 2.83 times the annual income, the figure being the lowest among all players in the telecommunications industry with a value of over $ 1 billion.

    RIM is facing lately with a lot of problems, the company announcing recently that it will delay the launch of its latest BlackBerry handsets.

    In addition, BlackBerry smartphones have steadily lost market share against its competitors, Apple’s iPhone or terminals equipped with Android.

    RIM has failed on the tablets market too. Its 7-inch Playbook tablet launched this year by the Canadian company, recorded sales well below expectations. In order to counter this fail, the device was gradually reduced in pricing from about $ 500 to about $ 200, another fact proving the delicate situation faced by the Canadians at RIM.

  • RIM Launches Blackberry Bold 9790 and Blackberry Curve 9380

    Canadian smartphone manufacturer Research In Motion has announced today in Jakarta two new models from the series running the new operating system Blackberry 7. The new smartphones, BlackBerry Bold 9790 and BlackBerry Curve 9380, will be offering a unique design and an impressive suite of features.

    BlackBerry Bold 9790
    The new model from Bold family does not differ very much from the previous 9900. The only difference worth mentioning is its design. BlackBerry Bold 9790 has embossed buttons over the QWERTY keyboard, while the device’s back looks very much like BlackBerry Torch 9850. The new Bold presents – like the BlackBerry 9900 – a touchscreen in addition to the physical QWERTY keyboard.

    BlackBerry Bold 9790 has a 1GHz processor, NFC support and an internal memory of 8GB, which can be easily expanded with a microSD card.

    BlackBerry Curve 9380
    Curve series has always been designed for customers who want an affordable and powerful BlackBerry device and the new model does not disappoint. BlackBerry Curve 9380 is very similar to BlackBerry Storm, being the first device in Curve series with a 3.2-inch touchscreen. The new Curve presents a lot of social media applications preinstalled, such as Twitter, Facebook, BlackBerry Messenger or Social Feeds.

    BlackBerry Curve 9380 is expected to have a 5-megapixel camera and a 800GHz processor with 1GB of storing memory.

    Rumors inside RIM say that their brand new BlackBerry Bold 9790 and BlackBerry Curve 9380 will be available globally in the next few weeks, but they didn’t disclose any pricing details.

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  • iPhone Did Not Conquer Yet the Hearts of the Rich

    iPhone is leading the smartphone market in terms of sales, but smartphone users can also be divided by income: a study conducted by prospermobile.com, shows that the brand of mobile phones most used by the rich is BlackBerry. The study was conducted in June 2011 by interviewing 25,000 respondents.

    According to the study, the BlackBerry is the most used smartphone among users with incomes over $ 150,000 per year. 11.3% of the richest Americans own a BlackBerry, while only 10.9% of them have an iPhone and only 7.2% have an Android smartphone.

    Moreover, the ranking is also the same for users which have income ranging between 100,000 and 149,000 dollars per year. 21.2% of them are using BlackBerry, 19.1% of them use Apple’s iPhone and only 15.8% use a smartphone running on Android OS.

    Interestingly, iPhone starts to lead the ranking of the most commonly used smartphones among users with an annual income between $ 75,000 and $ 99,000. 20% of them use Apple's terminal, while the BlackBerry smartphone is used by only 18.7% of users in this group.

    Android handsets, which are not so popular among wealthy users, seem to be the preferred choice of those with incomes ranging between 35,000 and 49,000 dollars a year.

    The study also shows that BlackBerry users are generally professionals, businessmen or managers and they are not active users of online applications or multimedia content. Only 59.5% of them are downloading applications, while the percentage among iPhone users is up to 85.

    Anyway, this study gets public even before the launch of the iPhone 5, which, according to the latest rumors, will be held in Cupertino, not in San Francisco as happened with the previous generations if iPhones and iPads. The launch will be live on internet, on the Apple’s official website, on Tuesday, October 4.

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  • Blackberry Wants to Help the British Police

    BlackBerry maker RIM offered to help the police in Great Britain to identify the protesters in the main cities of the Kingdom, after several days of violence that produced, on Tuesday, the first victim.

    "We think at those who have suffered from violence this weekend in London. I contacted the authorities and we want to help in any way we can," told for The Inquirer Patrick Spence, manager at RIM.

    His statements come after, during the day, it has been speculated that the wave of violent protests in London has been organized through BlackBerry Messenger network, known as BBM, present on BlackBerry smartphones. RIM declined to specify exactly how will cooperate with British authorities.

    London violence broke out during the night of Saturday, in response to the deadly shooting of a man by police. Several other protests have erupted since then in several UK cities, which resulted in approximately 450 arrests. The number could reach several thousands if RIM agrees to provide incriminating information to police.

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  • RIM Unveils New Blackberrys: Torch 9810, Torch 9860 and Bold 9900

    Canadian manufacturer Research in Motion has introduced on Wednesday three new Blackberry models: Torch 9810, Torch 9860 and Bold 9900.

    The new phones, along with an upgrade of Bold unveiled just few days ago, are part of what the Canadian company calls "the biggest global launch of the company”. This way, RIM is trying to regain its market share in the U.S., the region where the company lost ground to Apple's iPhone and to the numerous models with Google Android.

    The three terminals with touchscreen that are running on BlackBerry OS 7, have improved screens and 1.2 GHz Qualcomm processor – which is actually the most powerful  in a Canadian phone. This will be launched globally by the end of August.

    The browser of the new phones is up to 40% faster than that running on the oldest Torch model.

    The much coveted BlackBerry Torch 9810, also known as the Torch 2, has also appeared today on AT&T site, the largest mobile network in the United States. The device runs the new BlackBerry OS 7 and supports ultra-fast 4G connectivity.

    Information on the official AT&T website in connection with the device with removable keyboard shows a significant improvement of the hardware part compared to the first Torch. Blackberry Torch 9810 has a 1.2 GHz processor, 8GB of internal memory (the ability to expand its storage up to 32GB) and 4G support, which offers the fastest Internet connection speeds for smartphones.

    Regarding the software, the model will run, as expected, the BlackBerry operating system 7.

    BlackBerry Torch 9810 will be available "soon" in AT&T.

    RIM shipped 13.2 million phones in three months that ended in May, the first drop in sales since mid-2007.

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  • RIM Fires 2000 Employees and Announces Two New Smartphones

    Research in Motion, the company producing Blackberry devices, has announced yesterday that is to fire 2000 employees. The measure taken by RIM represents another proof of the delicate situation of the Canadian company. RIM has also announced yesterday on Twitter that today will post new about the two Blackberry smartphones running on the OS 7.

    Personnel cuts, which amount less than 10% of the total number of employees, has decreased the number of employees from Research in Motion to about 17,000 workers. The main reason for the dismissals remains the disappointing sales and the loss of a significant segment of customers who switched to Apple or Android devices.

    RIM said that these redundancies are, however, part of a program of internal reorganization, in order to focus the company’s direction on future projects. The program of "costs optimization" will focus on meeting the strategic plan to become again a serious trademark on the smartphone market.

    The current objective of the Canadian company is to launch 7 Blackberry smartphones, running on the OS 7, by the end of the year and it seems that two of them are about to be launched sooner as expected.

    Research in Motion has announced on their official Twitter page that will post, on Tuesday, details about the new Blackberry devices running on OS 7. The tweet in cause said “You got it! New Blackberry devices are coming with our new OS Blackberry 7!” The other message posted on Blackberry’s official Facebook page was saying the same thing, but in a more enigmatic way.

    These two messages have put on fire the company's fans community in Canada and started a stream of rumors on the sites of specialty. However, one thing is certain: the new Bold and Torch smartphones are on the horizon, most likely the models BlackBerry Bold 9900/9930 and BlackBerry Torch 9810.

    Stay connected on www.smartphone.biz-news.com for the latest details of the BlackBerry 7 smartphones.