Oh how the tables have turned… and then turned again. Nokia is now selling more Windows Phone-based Lumia phones than BlackBerry is selling of its own phones. Nokia said that as of last quarter it sold a record high of 7.4 million Lumia smartphones. Meanwhile, BlackBerry shipped 6.8 million smartphones. For the first time, the Lumia line is outselling the BlackBerry line.
It gets even more interesting when you take into consideration the past. Before the iPhone, Nokia was dominating the mobile space with its Symbian smartphone OS. Then once the iPhone and other touchscreen devices set the new standard, Nokia failed to keep Symbian up to par and quickly fell out of the game. BlackBerry, however, remained relevant for a bit longer because many enterprise users still preferred the BlackBerry as well as consumers who simply just wanted a physical keyboard.
Now that iOS and Android are caught up on enterprise features and no one really cares about physical keyboards anymore, BlackBerry is no longer needed and it too has mostly disappeared from the public’s interests. It’s been trying to repair itself with BlackBerry 10 and new devices that better compete with iOS and Android, but those attempts have failed. On the other hand, Nokia tried repairing itself by adopting the Windows Phone platform and its Lumia brand and is slowly succeeding — or at least succeeding enough to now once again place ahead of BlackBerry.
It’s fun watching those tables turn, isn’t it?