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Blackberry benefits from iPhone hype
June 18, 2008
A lot of the iPhone launch coverage last week included references to the alternatives to Apple’s latest mobile phone. It looks like the competitor that benefited most from these comparisons in Britain was Blackberry – ironic, considering that many are touting the new 3G iPhone as a ‘blackberry-killer’. As you can see from the table chart below, UK Internet searches for ‘blackberry’ reached their highest ever level last week.
Looking at the search term suggestions for ‘blackberry’, the most popular model is the new Bold, which has overtaken the Pearl and Curve in the public affections. When we were publishing our lists of the most searched for mobile phones last Christmas, one of the things that struck me was how far Blackberries fell down the list. It’s interesting to see how the press coverage and marketing surrounding the Bold has primarily driven searches for the parent brand, rather than the specific model. This lack of search for particular models seems to be a particular ‘problem’ for Blackberry.
As you can see from the table below, 16.6% of people searching for a term containing the word ‘blackberry’ over the last 4 weeks just used the basic parent term, while 2.19% searched specifically for ‘blackberry bold’. These figures are different for other major manufacturers, which do much better from specific models. For LG, the parent brand accounts for 7.13%, with the most popular individual model ‘lg viewty’ managing 4.42%; for Samsung the respective figures are 7.97% and 2.9% (‘samsung soul’); while Nokia’s are 9.49% and 2.66% (‘nokia n95’).
So how do searches for these ‘iPhone-killers’ stand up against the monster itself? As the chart below illustrates, the Samsung Soul has been doing well, while the Nokia N95 and LG Viewty both got a boost last week. In addition to the Blackberry Bold, the other rising star is the HTC Touch Diamond. However, they all fell far behind the iPhone last week. If you’re interested in seeing how long this peak lasts, keep an eye on the blog. Next month we’ll be reinstating our hot gadgets list, which will include tracking of the top mobile phone models.
Posted by Robin Goad at 02:00 PM
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In Categories Gadgets | Mobile phones | Search
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Comments
Fair point Simon, although I suspect that the timing of the iPhone launch (which was known well in advance) probably has some impact on the Blackberry's marketing strategy, particualarly in deciding when to advertise and crank up the PR.
Thanks, Robin
Posted by Robin Goad | June 18, 2008 04:34 PM
Hi Robin,
I think that the predominance of search for the generic brand term 'blackberry' as opposed to a specific model is mainly due to the recent attempt of repositioning of RIM from a predominantly B2B to a B2C focus.
It looks as if the majority of users is new to the perception of Blackberry as a 'smartphone' for personal and leisure purposes.
I am really interested in seeing how the typologies of search queries will evolve once prospects surpass this level of awareness to embrace the 'consideration' or 'shopping' phase - then perhaps search types will start being similar to Nokia, Samsung, and other established smartphones operators for individual users.
What is your view on this?
Thanks,
Rossella
Posted by Rossella Spoto | June 23, 2008 10:55 PM
Hi Rosella - thanks for your comment.
You're right about Blackberry becomimg more consumer focussed. As the data above shows, 16.6% of people searching for a term containing the word 'blackberry' seached just for the simple term, excluding a specific model name. This is higher than the other more consumer focussed brands such as Samsung, LG and Nokia, but lower than the same time last year, when the the figure was 17.5%.
So it looks as if Blackberry is going in the right direction if it wants to sell more to consumers, albeit at a relatively slow rate. We'll be covering this topic on a monthly basis now, so keep an eye on the blog for updates next month.
Thanks, Robin
Posted by Robin Goad | June 24, 2008 08:48 AM
To be fair Robin, BlackBerry is running a high-profile TV ad campaign at the moment. I'm not sure the iPhone hype has had any material contribution.
Posted by Simon | June 18, 2008 04:16 PM