BlackBerry officially holds 0 per cent of the global smartphone market now

How the mighty have fallen. A new report from Gartner shows that of the 432 million devices shipped in Q4 2016, a measly 207,900 were products running BlackBerry OS. This puts the Canadian company’s share of the global market at 0.0482 per cent, effectively 0 per cent.

To be sure, BlackBerry also ships Android-based devices like the Priv, DTEK50 and DTEK60 which are not accounted for in this figure, but there have been few signs that they would make much of a difference. For one, BlackBerry’s revenue for hardware and other products had fallen to just US$62 million in Q3 of FY 2017, and analysts did not even ask about its Android devices in a Q3 earnings call.

On the other hand, smartphones running Google’s Android OS – probably from brands other than BlackBerry – accounted for the larger slice of the pie at 81.7 per cent of the market. Apple’s iOS came in second at 17.9 per cent.

Android wins out in numbers largely because of its open-source nature, which means that it is the OS of choice for many budget handsets in developing markets.

The Gartner numbers only confirm what we all have known for some time – BlackBerry’s once-lauded phones are dead.

BlackBerry used to be the undisputed leader among business professionals thanks to its physical keyboards and security features, but it failed to anticipate and adapt to the wave of touchscreen devices that the iPhone launched.

As recently as January, Alex Thurber, SVP for global device sales, told the Financial Post that the company’s BB10 OS had a “strong following around the world in enterprise and government”, adding that the company remained committed to supporting and investing in BB10.

Source: Gartner via ExtremeTech

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