“It is easy to forget now amid its economic and political convulsions but for many years Venezuela was BlackBerry’s South American jewel, an unexpected success story in a country better known for chasing away foreign businesses,” Ligimat Pérez reports for IDG News.
“With a cellphone penetration larger than its 29 million habitants, most of them chatty by nature and eager to show off the best technology they could afford, Venezuela was paradise for smartphone makers despite government economic controls. BlackBerry landed first and Venezuelans fell in love with it,” Pérez reports. “That success mattered even more from 2012 after key markets like the US and Mexico started to turn their backs on the Canadian phone, and Venezuelans rushed into the stores to buy more. So, sales jumped 72% according to the state telecom agency Conatel. The socialist realm of Hugo Chavez became BlackBerry’s regional bastion, more important even than Brazil. BlackBerries accompanied Venezuelans to the beach, the office, even to bed. “PIN me,” became the fashionable phrase among a large legion of users. Even Chavez showed off his BlackBerry on his TV show.”
Pérez reports, “But now this Caribbean oasis is turning into quicksand for the once-groundbreaking company. Its market share is starting to crumble, which is bad enough, even worse, the company’s revenues are trapped in the socialist republic.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Ting” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Beleaguered BlackBerry CEO Chen belittles iPhone users as ‘wall huggers’ who carry battery-short phones – March 7, 2014
Apple MacBooks, iPhones, iPads invade White House, surround Obama’s BlackBerry and Dell PC – September 4, 2011
RIM posts higher 4Q profit, sales; Obama’s BlackBerry endorsement helped claims analyst – April 3, 2009
So, socialism isn’t the only anachronism Oblahblah shares with Chavez.
Go troll elsewhere.
How much do you make posting this spam crap here? I mean it’s the third post I’ve seen you make the same irrelevant redundant reply to the top level poster and contributing nothing to the discussion of the topic at hand.
How much money do you make posting this crap and who is paying you for it?
Oh while we are at it, what part of the states do you come from.
Oh while we are at it, maybe you and your friend’s sister should check out:
http://www.stupid-people.net/
SPAM! REMOVE PLEASE! THANK YOU!
Looks like some enterprising individual may have written a sophisticated bot to register with WordPress. Either that or someone’s paying some poor third world punk to manually do this shit.
MDN, Get on top of this!
It’s just as repetitive as some of the drivel posted here by regulars, maybe that is why notice has not been taken
And I suppose you would have us believe you are also an attorney representing a prince in Nigeria who needs to shelter his funds in the US and needs my bank account number in return for a commission rate of 30 percent.
Here’s some advise, turd. The average Mac owner is more affluent and well educated than your average joe. I believe you want to fish for suckers somewhere else, like some porn site; not here.
my step-aunt doesn’t want to do web cam porn!
Isn’t it pretty amazing that MDN can block posts that criticize them, but let these BS posts survive? Somebody not doing their job?
In some cases, rdiddly, having a message board moderator delete a way-off-topic post is a valid way of doing things. But it often makes the douchebag who was shut out come back on the mistaken assumption that the audience might have bitten on the bait if only his idiotic message could have gotten to them.
Usually, the best response to *bad* speech is
” rel=”nofollow”>*better* speech.
My friends step-aunts cousins uncles daughters boyfriends mother saved 15% in just 15 minutes by switching to G******o. /s
Hey MDN, can’t you stop these copy and paste posts?
If this is true, and not some ponzi scheme, why spread the word. If this business attracts more entrants margins will decline. As Greg L said, the average mac owner is well educated and unlikely to fall for this rubbish. Go try this on a Samsung board.
Background alert: For those readers who can’t fathom what this thread might be about, someone posted a link about how a relative made $90k a year by working on her laptop only a few hours a day. As writer “rdiddly”, above, suggested, MDN deleted it.
But I see it is now back. Be sure not to click the link; it may be the douche receives money for each click.
Exactly right, and its persistence is proof that clicks keep happening and revenue is flowing. Derek Currie is trying to label each occurrence to stop newbies from clicking the link. Expecting MDN to just take care of it is uncannily like expecting the authorities to protect us.
“and eager to show off the best technology they could afford”
Yes, Blackberry was doomed, never stood a chance.
Sorry to get off topic by writing on topic, please don’t delete me.