RIM has just sold 490,000 BlackBerry PlayBooks in the first three months of the tablet’s launch in April this year.
In comparison, Apple sold 9.25 million iPads over the same period, according to a Bloomberg report. In the same report, Bloomberg says analysts predict that RIM will sell around 2.2 million PlayBooks in its first year.
Obviously, this doesn’t bode well for RIM that is also currently under tremendous pressure from investors who want the company to turn its fortunes around or opt for an acquisition.
At launch, RIM had expected the PlayBook to boost its position in the mobile device market, a market in which the once dominant force is currently rapidly losing market share to Apple and Google’s Android platform, but being late to come into the tablet game and deciding not to include dedicated e-mail or instant messaging and a shortage of consumer applications has severely affected PlayBook sales.
While the new BlackBerry Bold 9900 offers a glimmer of hope for RIM with its improved hardware and BlackBerry 7 operating system, RIM’s long-term success lie in the public’s reception towards its yet-to-be release QNX devices. At the moment RIM’s biggest challenge will be if it can release these QNX devices on time.
