RIM's market share may drop to 5 percent
On the eve of Research in Motion’s developer conference in Orlando, Florida, one analyst warned that the company may lose out on even more precious market share to Apple and Google.
RBC Capital Markets analyst Mark Sue told Reuters that Apple and Samsung continue to lead the race for the top spot, while others are “donating” market share.
At the last count, RIM had 8.8 percent of the market share for the fourth-quarter, according to research group Gartner, a figure down by nearly half on the year earlier. comScore figures for November–February show a a steeper drop with HTC replacing RIM in fifth place in the top mobile OEMs category, indicating less than 6.3 percent of the mobile market share. But while RIM aims to launch its next-generation BlackBerry smartphones later this year — pegged for October, reports suggest — the company could find its market share dropping 5 percent or less, Sue said.
