Since I love making it seem as if The Netherlands is in any way relevant anywhere ever, here's the most recent market share figures for smartphones, released today, covering the month of August (there's a graph showing the figures for every month from August 2011 until August 2012). The iPhone has a market share of almost 20% - but Android is ravaging the market, and now holds a market share of 70% (!). Nearly 75% of all Android smartphones sold in The Netherlands are made by Samsung. If you take the entire phone market - including feature phones - the iPhone holds 13% (up from 8% in August 2011) and Android 47% (up from 30% in August 2011). Windows Phone barely manages to hold on at 1%, and the BlackBerry dropped from 13% to 5%. Interestingly enough, in this combined feature/smartphone market, nearly 50% are Samsung phones. This of course doesn't yet include the iPhone 5, so the next set of figures will most likely show a spike for Apple. Still, if The Netherlands is in any way indicative of the rest of Europe, it's no surprise Apple tends to focus on US figures during its presentations.
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Member since:2011-05-12
I'd suspect older people would prefer physical keyboards and kids with small and nimble fingers and a more adaptive brain would manage a virtual keyboard easier.
But I also guess when some have a BlackBerry the rest wants one too not to be left out of the BBM chats.
Let's see what the next generation of BlackBerries brings us.
Member since:2005-07-06
I'd guess it might as well be about greater adaptability of kids ...to touch-typing, on physical keyboards (not only qwerty, also the usual alphanumeric - I've seen young people thumb-typing "blind" on those, one-handed). Conversely, for older people it might not matter that much - because they hunt-and-peck anyway.
But yeah, network effects... here it's the obnoxious GG ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gadu-Gadu - and PL version of that article has a ridiculous claim about GG first to be used in space, on the ISS - seemingly unremovable because it has a citation to right-leaning newspaper, which basically just reprinted PR claims of the developer ...but those claims have issues: 1) at the time, ISS didn't have a direct IP access, only a form of email and ftp 2) ~IM aspect of pocket radio was certainly used not only on ISS, but on Mir; plus, http://www.kyon.pl/img/15962,gadu-gadu,Quake,comparison,pl,.html & http://www.kyon.pl/img/17590,comparison,gtalk,Windows_Live_Messenge... - it "beats" Live Messenger by now).
GG first got some popularity by offering ~free SMS to PL networks, then - by introducing IM capability - it managed to grab the nascent market from ICQ (some ill-conceived local "patriotism" probably also played a role) ...and so we're stuck with it, one uses it because everybody else do. Whole country turned into an IM ghetto, even Skype didn't manage to break it - now people simply run both.
GG also on mobile - oh, and BBM doesn't exist (a place only a bit over 1000 km away)
Now, those effects also mean that Blackberry could have been reasonable, by introducing paid BBM for other, new platforms - they would probably be the mobile messenger by now. But it's probably too late.
PS. OTOH, kids love prepaid ...and I don't think BB fits that very much?
Edited 2012-10-14 15:12 UTC
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Member since:
2009-06-20
It's the keyboard.
I have a friend with a crappy, low-sales Samsung (so no CyanogenMod or other 3rd party support) with a keyboard, and she clings to it with fiery passion (as an actress etc.).