In October, when BlackBerry decided to release BBM for Android smartphones and  iPhones, BlackBerry might have dug their own grave in one of the biggest and most crucial emerging markets. BBM is the most prevalent method of communication in Indonesia and when customers were presented with the choice of abandoning their BlackBerry in favor of the more fashionable Samsung Galaxy, Blackberry’s fate was sealed in the Indonesian Smartphone industry.

BlackBerry’s position as the market leader between 2010 and 2012 diminished due to it’s inability to stay current in every facet. Since then Samsung Galaxy has risen to prominence, mainly due to the price they were offering and a superior ‘App marketplace’ provided by Google’s Android. “BlackBerry’s share of new smartphone shipments has fallen from more than 50 percent last year to less than 20 per cent in the third quarter of this year while Android phones now account for nearly 70 percent” according to a market research group called IDC.

In Indonesia, BBM was downloaded 20 million times in the first week and this poses an interesting question: Has BlackBerry consolidated it’s position in the Market Chat App? Had BlackBerry accepted their inevitable fate in the Smartphone industry? Has social networking become everyone’s primary focus?

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101204410