Nielsen: BlackBerry nearly a non-factor in Q2, Android and iOS take top spots

New numbers from Nielsen illustrate what has long been obvious to anyone who pays attention to technology: old feature phones will soon be a thing of the past. Nielsen reported on Thursday that two-thirds of new mobile phones purchased in the second quarter of 2012 were smartphones. What's more, Nielsen found that just under 55% of all U.S. mobile subscribers owned smartphones, meaning something that was considered a high-end item just five years ago is now commonplace. As far as smartphone operating systems go, Nielsen found that recent adopters over the past quarter unsurprisingly gravitated toward Android, which accounted for 54.6% of all new smartphone purchases, and iOS, which accounted for 36.3% of all new smartphone purchases. RIM's BlackBerry devices continued to lose market share during the quarter, as BlackBerry OS smartphones accounted for just 4% of all new smartphone purchases - just two quarters ago, RIM's share among new smartphone buyers sat at 15%.

BlackBerry PlayBook 4G seem ready for a release

 

Granted, we do know that the BlackBerry PlayBook did run into issues in terms of sales figures in the past, and beleaguered smartphone manufacturer RIM does not seem to be in too good spirits these days. There have been rumors in the past of the BlackBerry PlayBook 4G being launched, and in one of the more recent excerpts from RIM CEO Thorsten Heins, it does seem as though the BlackBerry PlayBook 4G is ready to rock and roll sometime in the future. N4BB and BB FR did spend some time with the tablet, where it sported 4G connectivity as well as software version OS 2.0.1.354.

Initial impressions pointed to a faster processor, and it could possible be a faster dual-core 1.5GHz chip that sees action. In addition, word has it that RIM has also begun to release such tablets to its corporate partners as well as other channels of distribution. BlackBerry Messenger does not seem as though it is installed on the tablet though. Do you think that the BlackBerry PlayBook 4G is going to be able to turn things around for RIM?