BlackBerry communicates growing rivalry with Apple iPhone

BlackBerry yesterday threw down the gauntlet to Apple’s iPhone, outlining an aggressive push into the Californian group’s core consumer market after doubling profits and sales.

After sewing up the corporate market for wireless e-mail devices, Research in Motion (RIM), the company behind the BlackBerry, is forging into the high-end individual market.

Second-quarter results from the company, released to Wall Street late on Thursday, revealed its success. For the first time in the North American market, new subscriptions to the service from individuals outstripped those from companies.

The group said that individual consumer subscribers now account for about 30 per cent of its subscription base, which has broken through the 10 million subscriber mark and sent posttax profits in the three months to September 30 to $287.7 million (£140.8 million) – up from $140.2 million a year ago on sales that more than doubled to $1.37 billion, up from $658.5 million a year ago.

Jim Balsillie, co-chief executive of RIM, said: “This outperformance was driven by the strong product cycle we are in the midst of as well as the diversification of our base across multiple geographies and market segments.”

The move to shed its reputation as a work-only tool and appeal to what it has dubbed the “prosumer” market of affluent, style-conscious consumers, was helped by the release of more BlackBerry models, including the Pearl, which is modelled like a traditional mobile handset, and the Curve.

The Ontario-based group has further tailored its products to the consumer by launching them in an array of colours and adding services such as music players, memory cards and cameras. They have long been standard on mobile phones but BlackBerry had regarded them as gimmicks.

The BlackBerry has been given a further boost by photographs of celebrities including Victoria Beckham and Britney Spears using them.

However, the strongest sign of its intentions came with the introduction of new software, BlackBerry Unite, which allows up to five people to share pictures, music and documents. The software will be available free to subscribers.

Ben Wood, of CCS Insight, the telecoms research group, described Unite as the “boldset step so far towards making the BlackBerry a consumer product”.

In addition, rumours have been sweeping the internet that RIM is preparing to launch a BlackBerry with a touch-screen – a key feature of Apple’s iPhone.

The move into this area pitches RIM in direct competition with “converged” device makers including the iPhone – a combined mobile handset, iPod music player and web browser.

RIM could also seek to exploit the alleged weaknesses of the iPhone. Critics in the UK, where it was recently unveiled ahead of a launch next month, complained that it does not offer 3G speeds, making its e-mail and internet capabilities less efficient.

In a further blow for Apple, analysts at Goldman Sachs said RIM has also hinted at relationships with Google and major music companies.