Blackberry Losing The Enterprise Smartphone Market Share To iPhone!

Turns out that Blackberry has lost its stronghold on the  only niche segment that it prided itself. Yes, iPhone has unseated Blackberry as the most preferred smartphone in the workplace.

According to the quarterly mobile workforce report published by  iPass,

iPhone is now the top smartphone in the enterprise with 45 market share among mobile workers, up from 31 percent in 2010. Blackberry’s market share actually dropped to 32 percent from 35 percent in 2010

The results were based on a survey of over 2,300 mobile employees at over 1,110 enterprise worldwide lending some credibility to the percentage based market share split.

Enterprise Mobility Being Powered By iOS and Android based devices

Enterprise mobile brands growth / fall (1010-11)

Come to think of it, it is not so much about Blackberry losing significant market share (~3% down) but more about increasing market share of iPhone and Android based smartphones even in the enterprise.

What the graph also suggests is the marketshare loss of Symbian OS (Well, we knew that already) and Windows Mobile also losing market share. Well, its not so bad for Microsoft (and Nokia) since the early reviews of Windows OS based Nokia smartphones seem to positive and even the respondents in the survey (3.6% of them) are looking to buy a Microsoft Windows mobile as their next phone.

But even as the incumbents have been losing marketshare, its the growth of Android based phones that is staggering especially given the skepticism in enterprises around anything open-source. Well, kudos to Android for creating a new market more than stealing the marketshare

There are multiple reasons for this shift in smartphone preference in the enterprise.

• For one, it is clear that Blackberry’s USP around highly secure e-mail is not enough for domination. Enterprise Mobility is now more than just using e-mail and is more about applications, mobile browsing etc. No surprises then that iOS and Android based smartphones are lapping up the marketshare then.
• There is also a clear shift in who provisions the smartphone at the workplace. 58% of the companies are now provisioning smartphones to their employees as against an estimated 66% last year. Companies are warming up to the idea of employees using their personal smartphones for work related activities or in other words open to the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) to work mantra.

What this means is that mobility in the enterprise is increasingly being led by the end users and not some large IT department which are often a few years behind the technology adoption curve. The only worrying aspect to this trend is the mobile security vulnerability which companies will have to work on.

The mobile workforce report also points out an increasing adoption of tablets emerging as part of enterprise mobility tools with iPad being the leader with Blackberry’s Playbook with around 4.8% marketshare.

Guess it never hurts to have a sizable installed base to sell your new shiny product even as the existing one is fighting a lost cause.

Overall enterprise mobility space is evolving at a rapid pace. There is a clear shift in the demand side preferences and the supply side is hard at work to WOW this ‘I decide my mobile work device’ workforce.

One thing is however clear, iOS and Android seem to be the way forward be it enterprise mobility or general consumer preference. The others can fight for the third spot!!