South Africa's coolest smartphone brand as rated by youth is...BlackBerry?

[Brendan Hugo]

Dunno about you, but I never saw this one coming. The eighth annual Generation Next Brand Survey Awards have been awarded, and BlackBerry went away with the “Coolest Brand Overall” in the rapidly advancing country.

Says Lanie Visser, Marketing Director for South Africa at Research In Motion (RIM), “We are delighted that South Africa’s youth has chosen BlackBerry as their smartphone of choice and as South Africa’s coolest youth brand for the second time. These awards reflect how the BlackBerry smartphone has become an indispensable social tool and lifestyle device for active, connected young South Africans and we would like to thank our young BlackBerry customers for their continued loyalty.”

I'm sure you're delighted RIM, but meanwhile I'm baffled, or at least I was. Then I started thinking. I've actually run into a number of people lately—not geeks by any standard—who were sporting fresh RIM hardware. Mostly I've run into them due to their needing my help with something complicated that is dead-simple on Android or Windows Phone—BB 10 just can't get here soon enough. But when asked why they purchased the phone, since it's a probably dying company and definitively behind the times, the answers were all something along the lines of, “because BlackBerrys are cool!”

Has RIM pulled one over our eyes? Is the BlackBerry brand alive and well among the “common folk,” despite the hardware being the laughing stock of geeks everywhere? Perhaps this is this some lingering ObamaBerry fever, though that would certainly seem to only cover the US, if that. Setting RIM's obscenely rapid decay aside, I'd love to hear everybody's thoughts on this—it certainly made me stop and think.

[RIM via BlackBerry Empire]

[CrowdAds]

[El C]

RIM is doing well in foreign markets despite all the doom and gloom reported by the news.

[Jeven]

I think a lot of people and youths in particular like Blackberry for its BBM messaging..doesn't really matter how old the particular model is.

sad times for RIM lately. Perhaps it can hang on, but probably not.

[saratoga]

Originally Posted by Brendan Hugo

Dunno about you, but I never saw this one coming.

Really? Not surprising, BBs are still status symbols in a lot of the world. Its why they are still selling phones even through they're basically dead as a company.

[3602]

I have to say that this here is the most un-BlackBerry looking BlackBerry. Looking at the face shot, it almost looks like an Apple design [twitch].

[WalkGood]

Originally Posted by Brendan Hugo

… Has RIM pulled one over our eyes? Is the BlackBerry brand alive and well ...

Doubtful!
http://www.mercurynews.com/business/...oss-blackberry
http://www.canadianbusiness.com/blog...ive-on-its-own
http://www.dailytech.com/RIM+Sinks+F...ticle24345.htm
http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamthie...ll-apple-last/
http://www.dailytech.com/RIM+Claims+...ticle23535.htm

Originally Posted by Brendan Hugo

Perhaps this is this some lingering ObamaBerry fever, though that would certainly seem to only cover the US, if that. Setting RIM's obscenely rapid decay aside, I'd love to hear everybody's thoughts on this—it certainly made me stop and think.

RIM's U.S. share of smartphones dropped from 44 percent in 2009 to 10 percent in 2011, according to market researcher NPD Group, I don’t think Obama’s numbers are that bad yet, but if the stock market continues on its downward spin who knows. That said the firm is based/headquartered in Ontario, Canada and has lost nearly 75% of its market value over the last 12 months regardless if they do good in one country. But who knows, maybe BB10 will save their asses or is it too late. My guess is as good as yours but if I was to bet on it, I'd say they'll be purchased or merge with another company like Motorola-Google or Nokia-Microsoft have done ...

[Jeven]

I think Obama will survive another 4 years but RIM won't.

The problems for RIM really started in 2010 with the advent of Android. Up til then they had been doing really well and had increased sales - even with the launch of the iPhone in 2007.

So what did they do then? They took their eye of the smartphone ball and decided to launch a tablet. Fine for a computer company such as Apple or Samsung to make a tablet, but a phone maker like RIM?

A worthless vanity project - and while the Playbook is a reasonably capable device, it remains largely unsold despite huge write-offs.