Apple's iPhone tops BlackBerry in RIM's home of Canada for first time

Posted:
in iPhone edited January 2014


Last year marked the first time ever that Apple outsold Research in Motion in its home country of Canada, as Canadians move from BlackBerry to the iPhone.



RIM shipped 2.08 million BlackBerrys last year in Canada, while Apple bested the company by shipping 2.85 million iPhones, according to data from IDC and Bloomberg. Though Canadians have remained loyal to their homegrown BlackBerry brand for years, smartphone sales in 2011 show that devotion waning.



A year earlier, in 2010, BlackBerry sales were 500,000 greater than the iPhone, while in 2008 the BlackBerry outsold the iPhone by a nearly five-to-one margin.



RIM has quickly fallen from being the market leader to an outsider, as Apple's iPhone and devices running Google's Android operating system have risen to prominence. The company's losses prompted the ouster of the company's co-CEOs earlier this year.



The new CEO, Thorsten Heins, plans to oversee the launch of RIM's forthcoming mobile operating system update, BlackBerry 10, later this year. Smartphones running BlackBerry 10 are expected to arrive in the second half of 2010, but many analysts feel it will be too little, too late for the struggling Canadian smartphone maker.



While RIM is no longer the market leader in its home country, the BlackBerry still has success in some emerging markets, Bloomberg noted on Thursday. Specifically, RIM shipped 8.3 million BlackBerrys in the Middle East and Africa last year, while Apple shipped 2.5 million iPhones.











"In Saudi Arabia, teenagers have embraced RIM because they can flirt using its free BlackBerry Messenger instant messaging, avoiding local religious police who restrict interaction between unmarried men and women," the report said.



Apple has also failed thus far to unseat RIM's BlackBerry in Latin America. Last year, RIM sold 10.6 million BlackBerrys there, while Apple sold 2.1 million iPhones.



Instead, Apple has focused most of its attention on China, viewing it as a huge market with astounding growth potential. That bet has paid off thus far for the company, as evidenced by the news this week that China is the world leader in iOS device activations.



[ View article on AppleInsider ]

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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 23
    Wait...it took this long to outcompete that sitting duck? I dunno whether to be annoyed at Apple for not trying very hard, or ashamed of Canadians for being so needlessly masochistic.
  • Reply 2 of 23
    j1h15233j1h15233 Posts: 274member
    Seriously Canada, what's wrong with you?
  • Reply 3 of 23
    Actually, Android is the biggest selling in Canada... By far. It's being aggressively pushed by telcos here, and you can get many phones for free, and as you know, free always sells best.
  • Reply 4 of 23
    originalgoriginalg Posts: 383member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by j1h15233 View Post


    Seriously Canada, what's wrong with you?



    First world issues... Oh no we're too slow adopting the latest tech.



    Gimme a break...
  • Reply 5 of 23
    mikeb85mikeb85 Posts: 506member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SimonMTL View Post


    Actually, Android is the biggest selling in Canada... By far. It's being aggressively pushed by telcos here, and you can get many phones for free, and as you know, free always sells best.



    They'll also subsidize top of the line Android phones quite heavily, you can get a 600 dollar dual-core, large screen Android for a hundred bucks or less if you sign a contract.
  • Reply 6 of 23
    j1h15233j1h15233 Posts: 274member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by OriginalG View Post


    First world issues... Oh no we're too slow adopting the latest tech.



    Gimme a break...



    Learn to take a joke.
  • Reply 7 of 23
    rmb0037rmb0037 Posts: 142member
    Too many of them were giving the "well, it's more secure...i guess...that's what my IT guy says...wait...he got fired a year ago" line



    A friend of mine asked me "what is the most secure phone on the market today? President Obama's Blackberry." So i returned with "yeah, AND his trusty iPad 2 in his carrying case"
  • Reply 8 of 23
    apple ][apple ][ Posts: 9,233member
    Well, it's about time Canada! Far too many Canadians have been caught up in the RIM reality distortion field for far too long.



  • Reply 9 of 23
    Corel....ATI....Nortel....RIM....



    Sigh.
  • Reply 10 of 23
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Apple ][ View Post


    Well, it's about time Canada! Far too many Canadians have been caught up in the RIM reality distortion field for far too long.







    So glad the W.G.A. finally became involved.
  • Reply 11 of 23
    maecvsmaecvs Posts: 129member
    95% of all adverts here are for stupid Andriod or BB phones. There is an annoying dearth of iPhone ads. Of course, all the free phones are Andriod. When the iPhone came here, for the first year or so when Rogers had a monopoly, they should have plugged the iPhone like crazy, but astonishingly, no. All BB, then later all Andriod, all the time.

    Idiots......
  • Reply 12 of 23
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Maecvs View Post


    95% of all adverts here are for stupid Andriod or BB phones. There is an annoying dearth of iPhone ads. Of course, all the free phones are Andriod. When the iPhone came here, for the first year or so when Rogers had a monopoly, they should have plugged the iPhone like crazy, but astonishingly, no. All BB, then later all Andriod, all the time.

    Idiots......



    One word explains it all:



    Spiffs
  • Reply 13 of 23
    tooltalktooltalk Posts: 766member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SimonMTL View Post


    Actually, Android is the biggest selling in Canada... By far. It's being aggressively pushed by telcos here, and you can get many phones for free, and as you know, free always sells best.



    There is no free (with 2 year contract) iPhones 3GS in Canada?
  • Reply 14 of 23
    quadra 610quadra 610 Posts: 6,757member
    RIM produces junk today. And they don't give a damn about it, either.



    Like this was never going to happen?
  • Reply 15 of 23
    Dont know if giving out free phone is considered as selling.
  • Reply 16 of 23
    Quote:

    Smartphones running BlackBerry 10 are expected to arrive in the second half of 2010, but many analysts feel it will be too little, too late for the struggling Canadian smartphone maker.



    Nope, I think that 2010 would have been just about right... pity (for RIM) that you actually mean 2012 \
  • Reply 17 of 23
    atashiatashi Posts: 59member
    About every month or two I get a big junkmail envelope from Rogers (one of the big carriers in Canada) offering me a bunch of new phones to choose from. They have never put an iPhone in that flyer. There are usually 3 or 4 android phones and 1 or 2 rim phones, ranging from free to $200, all with contract of course.



    I don't think I've ever seen an iPhone ad in print, and the only iPhone ads I see on television are the ones Apple runs. In contrast, all the commercials that the carriers run feature android phones. I do see commercials for rim but I believe those are put out by rim - I don't think they're carrier-specific commercials that are advertising rim phones.



    I am surprised though that it's taken until now for iPhone to surpass Rim in sales. Of everyone I know with a smartphone, there's one blackberry and the rest are all iPhones. Maybe I just hang with the right crowd.
  • Reply 18 of 23
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by zak_the_great View Post


    Dont know if giving out free phone is considered as selling.



    A sale is a transaction. In this case a free phone requires a contractual obligation which has an associated cost. On top of that the carrier has a contract to pay the vendor x amount for each of the "free" handsets. They all count.
  • Reply 19 of 23
    stelligentstelligent Posts: 2,680member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Maecvs View Post


    95% of all adverts here are for stupid Andriod or BB phones. There is an annoying dearth of iPhone ads. Of course, all the free phones are Andriod. When the iPhone came here, for the first year or so when Rogers had a monopoly, they should have plugged the iPhone like crazy, but astonishingly, no. All BB, then later all Andriod, all the time.

    Idiots......



    Wow. You make it sound Canadians missed out on a miracle cancer drug for soooooooo long!
  • Reply 20 of 23
    stelligentstelligent Posts: 2,680member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by tooltalk View Post


    There is no free (with 2 year contract) iPhones 3GS in Canada?



    Yes, there is.
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