BlackBerry may be struggling to sell it’s handsets elsewhere but it can always count on Toronto for some good numbers. It’s the only city in North America where the Waterloo, Ont-based company appears to be giving rival Apple a run for its money.
In a report that tracked the number of mobile phones sold in the United States and Canada during the last six months iQmetrix, provider of retail management software for the wireless industry, found that BlackBerry handsets outsold Apple’s iPhones.
iQmetrix sampled data from 15,000 store locations across the North America from December 2013 to May 2014. The company found that 23 per cent of all phones sold in Toronto were BlackBerry phones. That accounts for 29 per cent of all BlackBerry sales across Canada and the U.S.
iPhones accounted for only 20 per cent of the sales in Toronto. Samsung outsold both brands by capturing 33 per cent of the market. Handsets from other manufacturers accounted for the rest.
Last month, BlackBerry CEO John Chen put the odds of survival of the company at 80 per cent, up from the 50-50 he gave in March.
“BlackBerry is on sounder financial footing today with a path to returning to growth and profitability,” he said.
iQmertix’s report covered the quarter when BlackBerry reported it had a loss of $423 million on revenue of $976 million, largely due to unsold inventory. Despite a range of devices using the advanced BlackBerry 10 operating system, the majority of its business is selling handsets running the older BB7 OS.
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The report indicated Samsung also led the way in Vancouver (33 per cent), followed by Apple (22 per cent), BlackBerry (9 per cent) and other brands (34 per cent).
BlackBerry was lumped with other brands that made up 23 per cent of sales in Montreal. The big winner there was Samsung with 41 per cent, followed by Apple, 20 per cent and LG with 16 per cent.
iQmetrix said they found some interesting trends such as the Big Apple being the stronghold of Apple where 61 per cent of New York phone buyers opted for the iPhone. However, Spokane and Seattle were Samsung bailiwicks with Samsung phones accounting for 46.1 per cent and 45.5 per cent of sales respectively.
LG and HTC fans were mainly in Glendale, Ariz., where LG accounted for 33 per cent of sales and HTC 21 per cent.
Across North America the top three performers were: Samsung, 39 per cent; Apple, 28 per cent; and BlackBerry six per cent.
Least selling phones were Huawei, 2.9 per cent, and Sony handsets, 1.9 per cent.
Only in Toronah….