Being the BB fan i am, im always curious as to who else is into BBs. So every place im at i tend to see what type of cell or cells the person near me is using. This has even become like a game with the gf and we each try to spot how many BBs are near us.
This is basically a small summary of what i have noticed in the few countries i have been to.
Paris- Very few people are seen with BBs. Its mainly iphones here. I walked into a mobile shop wanting to buy a simcard with BB service for the short period i was there and this was nearly impossible. At one mobile place i was told that to have the BB service i needed a contract and this was not possible with a pay as you go simcard. Another mobile shop there told me no BB service is available in France. Obviously someone was in the dark here. So if the mobile provider people are not aware of BB service etc how can they inform the clients??
Portugal- Very little people use BBs and although this seems to be increasing, people are not fully aware of BBs. Lack of advertising i would say.
Swaziland, Mozambique, South Africa- BB users are jumping in these countries. Main problems here include sometimes network problems, lack of BB support.
I go around the big malls/ airports in the above countries and i dont see a single BB store. Yet theres an istore, samsung store in most. To buy a BB accessory (case, cover, etc) its nearly impossible. The mobile companies dont have it all. Looked in about 3 mobile shops and none had a cover for my BBPB. Ended up finding this (Jornal Cover) in a computer shop with a price of around $91. Crazy.
I read about exchanging your BBs, promotions etc but in these places that BBs are booming you dont hear about this. So people continue with their old BBs and dont end up migrating to the new ones. What happens then is the day this same user with an old BB sees an android, iphone etc with a better software visual etc they change to it. This without knowing theres a newer BB curve, bold etc with a more recent software than whats on their current cellphone. People end up thinking all curves/ Bolds etc have the same software old or new.
So in my opinion RIM should try analise this by country worldwide and maybe invest a little more in the places where people are BB hungry as compared to places where people are iphone stuffed. Hopefully we can all see the sales move up ;)