SA leads way for BlackBerry

Johannesburg - South Africa is one of BlackBerry?s fastest growing markets, according to the smartphone brand's joint CEO Jim Balsillie, who visited the country to take part in Sunday's Argus cycle challenge.

In an interview on Friday, Balsillie said he is an avid cyclist and athlete. He is also friendly with cycling legend Lance Armstrong, but his visit to South Africa was not just for sports.

BlackBerry has become the number one smartphone brand in the USA and is second in terms of global sales. Research in Motion, BlackBerry's manufacturer, has said it shipped over 10 million BlackBerry smartphones in the last quarter of 2009 alone. Balsillie added South Africa is a key region for the brand, although he didn't disclose local sales figures.

"We had six years of well in excess of 100% growth per annum in Latin America," he said, saying this growth was achieved despite warnings about costs and adoption issues.

"People say the same things about South Africa," he said. "But there is so much value [in SA], there's such an innovative spirit. People have mobiles and they want digital services. We have big plans for sub-saharan Africa."

According to Balsillie, Africa is not excluded from the global trend of migration to digital media and services that centre on mobile phones.

'Digital services are the future'

"You're going to see a whole lot more value coming and hybrid economic models emerging," he said. "When this is your plasma TV [holding up a BlackBerry], when it is the way you consume all your digital media and such a rich consolidation of services, this is really the epicentre... of your life. My experience is people are going to find a way to spend that extra $20 or $30 on it.

"Is this the most expensive phone, or by far the cheapest TV you've ever heard of?" he asked. "How many hours a day are you going to be in front of this? More and more and more."

He said that market growth would continue for some time.

"If you look at the penetration, you could multiply our market by 10 and you'd still not be going too far. In the future, everything will be about digital services and you'll see new forms of monetisation.

"People won't buy magazines or newspapers. It's all going to be digital services," he said, adding that while the dynamics were different for the lower end of the market, one could already see the trends emerging there as well.

International research and consulting firm Gartner predicts the smartphone market will continue to grow in 2010. It said in a statement that generally 2009 worldwide sales for cellphones were flat, but that there was growth in the smartphone market.

Gartner singles out touchscreen phones as a significant growth area. It expects sales for that segment of the market to grow 97% in 2010, and to represent 27% of all cellphone sales for the year.

- Fin24.com