BlackBerry: On The road to extinction?

The first Blackberry device — an email pager — was available in the market in 1999. BBM was introduced in 2006, and by 2012, BB had sold 200 million phones, with its current figure of users placed at about 80 million. Six years down the line, a lot has changed. BBM now has to compete with several other substitutes for it — Whatsapp, Facebook chat, Google Chat, Viber chat and a number of other chat platforms.
Mobile network providers have been the major loser in terms of revenues from SMS. BB Limited is the latest hit. Whatsapp, BBM’s arch rival, claims a figure of about 200 million users currently, a far one from BBM’s.
Google is rumoured to be interested in acquiring Whatsapp, especially since it ranks as the second most downloaded app on Google Play. As BBM continues to struggle for a market share, this move may be a potent one in an attempt for a comeback. What is not clear is how this would affect the sales of Blackberry phones.
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The struggle for relevance and market share among mobile platform providers continues. Samsung and Apple are holding on to major market share and Techno is also making a stealthy incursion into the market as well, but if things go south, it may mean that the only place where Blackberry phones would remain popular is the technology museum. Already, 40 per cent of the company’s staff are expected to be dismissed before 2014. If this move falters, then may be the figure would be higher than this and would mean that BB is on a slow path to extinction.
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