The management strategy of Blackberry Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

The management strategy of Blackberry - Essay Example Center of discussion in this paper is Blackberry as a major player in the smart phone and mobile email markets around the world. The brand was designed and developed by the Canadian firm Research in Motion (RIM) and has been operational in the smart phone markets since 1999. The typical Blackberry device is created to function as a personal digital assistant, portable media player, internet browser, gaming device and many other similar functions. The largest competitive advantage available to Blackberry devices in comparison to other smart phones is their ability to send and receive push email and instant messaging while preserving a lot of security through patented encryption methods. Typical Blackberry devices support many instant messaging features including the Blackberry Messenger. For the fiscal year 2011, Blackberry sales accounted for 3% of all mobile device sales around the world. This makes RIM the sixth most popular device manufacturer in the world, as 25% of all mobile de vices manufactured in the world are smart phones. The trademark Blackberry Internet Service is offered in 91 countries through some 500 mobile service operators who provide differing mobile technologies. An estimate from October 2011 places the number of global Blackberry subscribers at 70 million. The greatest market penetration of Blackberry smart phones is in the Caribbean and Latin America with market penetration levels of up to 45% in the region. ... s that Android has the largest market share at 13% followed by Blackberry at 10% with Apple lagging behind at 9% while Windows Phone stands at a measly 1% only. The British market is also seeing a general increase in smart phones in the overall mobile phone market. Within this scope of expansion, the share of RIM increased by 4% while Apple expanded by 2% to their overall market share. However, these increases pale in comparison to strides by Android that grew to twice its previous market size. The increase from Android’s end can largely be attributed to mid-range headsets manufactured by HTC and Samsung that are also supporting Windows small market share (Brill, 2012). Blackberry’s and its competition’s overall market share reveals a lot given that Blackberry stands at 22.3% of the smart phone market while Android stands at 45.2% with Apple lagging behind at 18.3%. When these figures are compared to the market growth rates reported previously, it becomes clear t hat Blackberry’s greatest competition stems from Android. In order to find a better marketing scheme it is necessary to study why Blackberry is losing to Android in certain areas and gaining in others. While Blackberry is losing fast to competition from Android around the world, but consumers in Spain and the United Kingdom are holding strong to Blackberry. The youth market is supportive of Blackberry because of the large volumes of text messages and instant messaging services used by them. The primary usages of young consumers are messaging services that are harder to use in conventional handsets when compared to smart phones such as Blackberry. One major advantage available to Blackberry when compared to Android is the trademark QWERTY physical keyboard that is standard to all Blackberry devices but