Festive Holiday sales of the Iphone 4S in UAE have been quite exploding this month, But analists say there is too little chance for the iphone or Android for that matter to become UAE’s #1 smartphone as it has been BlackBerry for a couple of years.
Retailers have said that BlackBerry sales have remained strong despite the so-called DeadBerry in early October.
“Blackberry is definitely more popular than the iPhone in the UAE, and that’s primarily due the wide spread adoption of Blackberry messenger,” said Omar Abushaban, general manager for Plug-Ins. Blackberry has 40 percent share of smartphone sales at the retail chain compared with iPhone’s 30 percent stake, “Apple has introduced iMessaging as part of the iOS 5 upgrade. This allows for free messaging between iPhones and iPads; similar to Blackberry devices. [But] this will take a long time to take hold with customers, since BBM is so well established,” he said
But that doesn’t change that analysts fear that BlackBerry may have damaged its reputation due to it’s 2 Day service outage in the begining of october, But despite this, others think that RIM will be keeping it’s market share for the long run (i personally think it will)
“There have been a couple of things which have kept RIM strong,” said Ashish Panjabi, COO of Jacky’s, where Blackberry outsells the iPhone at a ratio of 2:1.
“First is the packages, the economical data plans for Blackberry at the moment…You can get the package for AED285 and that’s all you pay for unlimited data, I think that’s something that sways a lot of people [particularly business travellers].
“If you speak to an iPhone user or an android user, when they’re travelling they switch off their data, because it’s way too expensive. You end up paying per kilobyte. [On this plan] it’s not uncommon to get a bill for AED1,000-AED6,000.”
He added: “The second major factor of course is Blackberry messenger, which has been a lot more popular here than in many other parts of the world. I think one of the reasons for that is you have a lot of expatriates. BBM is a fairly economical way to keep in touch with family at home.”
What do you guys think? is RIM going to be able to move those strenght market shares back to america?, Sound Off in the comments!