[hurds]

How important is marketshare, and why does it matter?

Does it matter to you personally? Or more so as a side effect of how it affects your prefered platform?

[RubberChicken76]

It's important in that it sways media opinion, developer interest and consumer interest.

It's also an indicator of the success/health of a platform. Oftentimes with BlackBerry, it has historically been misconstrued. Until recently, the media would often make comments like "RIM's marketshare declined to ___ %" to imply that the number of people using a BlackBerry in the world had declined. In reality, the market was growing rapidly, so (until recently) it was actually more accurate to say that the BlackBerry was still growing globally but that competitors were growing much more quickly.

It's important for sure, though I think sometimes misunderstood.

[BB10BelieveIt]

There's a great quote by Ron Johnson, the retail wiz behind the Apple store "Mindshare always proceeds marketshare"; and RIM is knocking it out of the park in that department!!

[cjcampbell]

There's a great quote by Ron Johnson, the retail wiz behind the Apple store "Mindshare always proceeds marketshare"; and RIM is knocking it out of the park in that department!!

That's "precedes market share"....

[hurds]

I've seen people who think marketshare is the only thing that matters. Baffles me.

I think mindshare is more important in popularity contests. If people are making choices based on function I don't think mindshare matters.

Thats a good point that RIM has until recently continued to grow user base despite losing marketshare. Seems to be lost on some people. I guess subscriber base means nothing to them, maybe since their fav platform doesnt have one.

I think if you ask any company marketshare isn't the holy grail. Profitability is. In the smartphone sector I'd argue only Apple can make claim to that. But that could also be a huge problem for them if their single device, single platform ever takes a hit (well, maybe we are already seeing that).

Heres a thought though, with all the hype around RIMs loss of marketshare and Androids and Apples apparent domination of the market until now, and with the upcoming onslaught of competitors what will people say if this 'duopoly' starts to collapse? So far the general perception seems to be Apple and Android are invincible. Are they really going to continue to grow? You could argue going beyond 100% if people use mulitple devices, but wasn't that an argument against BBs?

It looks like OEMs might have a looooot of choice coming to them. Ubuntu, Tizen, maybe even BB10. Could put a damper on the 'droid camp. I amazed people don't realize how fickle and arbitrary their marketshare is. Add to that the fact innovation seemingly dead on 'droid.