BlackBerry Loses Top Spot to Apple

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BlackBerry Loses Top Spot to Apple at Home Corporate Canada

Canada’s love affair with the BlackBerry is waning.

Research In Motion Ltd. (RIM) has been ousted from the top spot for smartphone shipments in its home market for the first time, trailing Apple (AAPL) Inc.’s iPhone.

RIM, based in Waterloo, Ontario, shipped 2.08 million BlackBerrys last year in Canada, compared with 2.85 million units for Apple, data compiled by IDC and Bloomberg show. In 2010, the BlackBerry topped the iPhone by half a million, and in 2008, the year after the iPhone’s debut, RIM outsold Apple by almost five to one.

BlackBerry, one of the biggest consumer brands to emerge from Canada, had enjoyed more loyalty among locals who embraced its made-in-Canada roots. BlackBerry’s loss of domestic preeminence shows the iPhone’s user-friendly features and wealth of apps trump other considerations, said Paul Taylor, a fund manager at BMO Harris Private Banking in Toronto.

“For RIM, in its home market, to lose that No. 1 position to iPhone is strategically important,” said Taylor, who manages about $15 billion in assets, including RIM and Apple shares. “It does identify, even with a home-country bias, how consumers are responding to the greater functionality of the iPhone.”

To halt a sales slump that’s spreading north from the U.S., Thorsten Heins, RIM’s new chief executive officer, has vowed to do something “dramatically different.” The BlackBerry 7 phones introduced last year have better Web browsers and touch-screen navigation than older models and the BlackBerry 10 devices due out this year will represent further improvement, Heins said.

Bloomberg