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BlackBerry Z10, Q10 Phones Not Halting Company's Decline

Look How Far The Mighty Have Fallen
Thorsten Heins, chief executive officer of BlackBerry, attends the launch of the BlackBerry Z10 smartphone in Sydney, Australia, on Monday, March 18, 2013. BlackBerry, the Canadian smartphone maker that rolled out a new lineup in January, said on March 13 one of its 'established partners' is buying 1 million BlackBerry 10s, the biggest order in the company's history. Photographer: Brendon Thorne/Bloomberg via Getty Images
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Thorsten Heins, chief executive officer of BlackBerry, attends the launch of the BlackBerry Z10 smartphone in Sydney, Australia, on Monday, March 18, 2013. BlackBerry, the Canadian smartphone maker that rolled out a new lineup in January, said on March 13 one of its 'established partners' is buying 1 million BlackBerry 10s, the biggest order in the company's history. Photographer: Brendon Thorne/Bloomberg via Getty Images

BlackBerry’s much-publicized new smartphones have done little to stop the company’s global decline, at least for the moment, according to new research.

Market analysis firm IDC reports that the Waterloo, Ont.-based smartphone maker has fallen to fourth place globally in smartphone operating systems, behind Android phones, Apple’s iPhone and phones running Microsoft’s Windows.

BlackBerry had a 2.9 per cent share of the global smartphone market in the second quarter of this year, down from 4.9 per cent in the same period last year, IDC reported, and down from 11.5 per cent in 2011.

This marks the first time the company’s market share in the IDC rankings fell to fourth place. It had been ahead of Windows in earlier IDC surveys. And it’s far cry from the days — just half a decade ago — when BlackBerry commanded some 20 per cent of the global market.

Those days are clearly over, but the news isn’t quite as bad for BlackBerry in Canada as it is worldwide.

The Z10 phone released in January and the Q10 released this May did help the company bounce back in its home country. BlackBerry jumped into second place this spring, chalking up close to 30 per cent of all smartphone sales and pushing Android phones into third. The iPhone remained in first place, with nearly half of all sales in Canada.

The BlackBerry remains relatively strong in the U.K. as well, where its Messenger service has been very popular among youth. The company has an 18-per-cent market share there, according to data from StatCounter.

BlackBerry in June reported an $84-million loss for the first quarter of the year, when its Z10 phones were launching worldwide.

The company recently announced 250 layoffs, on top of 5,00 layoffs last year that reduced the company's total employment by roughly one-third.

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