CEO Blackberry: “Tablets are already outdated”

Wishful thinking after own failed attempt?

It might be just wishful thinking of Heinz,
because Blackberry never succeeded in releasing a successful tablet: Playbook,
launched in 2011, failed miserably. Observers feel the comments of Heins
reek a little bit of revenge.

At the moment Blackberry Is focusing everything
on the regeneration of its smartphone range. “I want to gain as much market
share as I can, but not by being a copycat. In five years I do not think
there will be any reason to have a tablet any more. Maybe a big screen in your
workspace, but not a tablet as such. Tablets themselves are not a good business
model.”

Worldwide tablet market grew 150%

That does not stop the market for tablets to
grow exponentially at the moment: in the first quarter of 2013 49 million
devices were sold, according to market analyst IDC, 2.5 times more than in the
first three months of 2012.

Especially Android devices are flying over the
counter, with Samsung at the top of the class: the South Korean group saw its market share rise from eleven to eighteen percent in the last year. That meant
Apple lost a bit of its market share, but it still remains the biggest
distributor of tablets: iPads are still worth 40 percent of the total market.

Apple did have to let Android pass for the very
first time: in 2012 sixty percent of all tablet sales were Apple, but now
Android has the lion’s share with 56.5%. Despite the release of Windows 8, an operating system specifically
aimed at tablets, Windows tablets remain in the margin with only three percent
of the market.