BlackBerry Is Number One Selling Smart Phone In UK

BlackBerry Is Number One Selling Smart Phone In UK

Apple fans everywhere, 8 million BBMers across these Isles of Wonder are laughing at your highly coveted iPhone 4S which you possibly queued all night for.

BlackBerry was the number one selling smart phone in the UK for 2011 and 2010.

RIM had 27.7% of smart phone sales in 2011, according to results from data firm GfK.

The company's market dominance in 2011 was achieved in part thanks to the wide range of phones released.

BlackBerry released seven smart phones including the BlackBerry Bold 9900, Bold 9790, Torch 9860, Torch 9810, Curve 9380 and Curve 9360.

BlackBerry's surprising figures come after a summer of notoriety for the phone company. BlackBerry Messenger was widely cited as an organising tool of the riots which crossed the UK.

Stephen Bates, managing director of RIM told The Huffington Post via phone: "Last year was a challenging year in parts, and none of us would want to relive the events of 2011. But we had the highest ever Christmas sales."

He was amongst the social media leaders who were called to Downing Street to talk Cameron down from shutting down social media during periods of unrest.

"I spoke at the select committee after the riots, and we talk regularly to government, which is one of our biggest customers," he said.

The company is currently in talks with LOCOG to secure bandwidth is available for its UK and visiting BlackBerry users during the London 2012 Olympics.

"We're developing apps with LOCOG to make sure their experience at the games is the best it can be. We've also opened the BBM API so that others can make useful apps, and that's been rolled out in Foursquare, for example."

2012 will see the release of the high end BlackBerry 10 which Bates says will offer a "richer" experience

RIM recently switched CEOs, dumping founders Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie in favour of Thorsten Heins.

Bates says "I know Thorsten well, he's been with the company for four years, and his appointment was part of Mike and Jim's succession plan. He will be focussed on innovation and execution, and making sure BlackBerry gives its users the best communications experience."

The company sees no single big competitor on the horizon for 2012. Bates says there is "lots" of competition, and that RIM's 2012 strategy is to release a range of upgrades to deliver the best possible communications experience for BlackBerry fans.

BlackBerry 7.1, tapable no-contact payments, Wi-Fi hotspots and W-Fi music synching are amongst the releases, as is version two of the software for the BlackBerry Playbook.

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