A few years back today’s Daily Telegraph headline - Will Blackberry survive 2012? – would have been unthinkable. But this year the news flow from RIM has been one bad story after another. That disastrously handled outage, the poor reception for the Playbook, the repeated profits warnings and, yesterday, news that its all important new smartphone, the Blackberry 10, would be delayed until H2 2012. Great timing as that’s when we all expect the iPhone5 to be released. RIM shares fell another 11% on Friday – that’s a 75% decline since 1st Jan 11. Ironically, at a $7b valuation that’s about the same as Zynga's value on its IPO yesterday. (See Zynga’s IPO)
As the FT said today, it really is a two horse smartphone race – see Apple and Google in Christmas showdown. Just to rub in the discomfort for RIM, the real star in the Google firmament has been Samsung. Their smartphone was nowhere just a year back – now it is up there vying with Apple for the top spot.
The RIM story is reminiscent of the Nokia story. Afterall, before the iPhone launch in 2007, these two suppliers had the smartphone market to themselves. Now both are languishing as also rans. Both are now banking on new launches in 2012 for their very survival. And both of those crucial launches have now been delayed. Not a good sign!
Reuters reported one analyst saying “RIM reminds me of a beloved grandparent. You love them, but they are very outdated and sooner or later they will be gone". The Telegraph article on RIM ends with the comment “Analysts across the board now find one conclusion inescapable: RIM doesn’t just need customers – it needs a buyer”. We have suggested the same applies to Nokia. 2012 could well be an ‘interesting’ year for M&A in the mobile world.