BlackBerry Losing Popularity In Indonesia

BlackBerry is the brand that was once loved by enterprise users around the world, and eventually it started to gain some traction with regular folks as well who loved the exclusivity of BBM and the feel of BlackBerry’s keyboard. However touchscreen smartphones started to become more popular  and BlackBerry failed to capitalize on that trend early, leading to them losing ground to Apple and Samsung in most markets. However BlackBerry did retain a few loyal markets, such as Indonesia where the handset was extremely popular amongst the younger crowd, but it looks like even then their loyalty has begun to wane.

According to the latest report from the International Data Corporation (via the Jakarta Globe), it seems that BlackBerry’s shipments to Indonesia only accounted for 14% of the 11 million smartphones shipped to the country last year. Of course shipped does not equal to sales, so even if BlackBerry consisted of 14% but managed to sell their entire shipment, it would still be a good thing, although in reality that rarely is the case. When asked why they would switch from BlackBerry to a different platform, Indonesians claimed that lag and lack of features were some of the reasons, with Darwin Lie, an analyst at IDC Indonesia echoing those sentiments by saying that other platforms offer up more apps, making it a more attractive option.

[Image Credit – JG Graphics/Modina Rimolfa]

Tyler Lee
Categories: Cellphones
Tags: BlackBerry