Over the past few years BlackBerry has bled market share. It used to dominate North America once, but then iPhone and Android happened. The company’s devices then thrived in emerging markets, but earlier this year it was revealed that BlackBerry has been struggling in those markets as well at the hands of low cost Android smartphones. Though it looks like the Canadian manufacturer just might be doing well in South Africa. According to statistics released by World Wide Worx and Dashboard, BlackBerry’s market share in South Africa is up from 18 percent to 23 percent from 2012 to 2013, whereas Samsung stayed put at 18 percent.
Though the stats don’t reveal if this bump is due to BlackBerry’s new BB10 devices or if its legacy devices are performing particularly well in South Africa. Overtaking Samsung doesn’t mean that BlackBerry dominates that particular market. Nokia rules the cellphone market in South Africa, holding some 44 percent, down from 50 percent this time last year. It is not known if majority of that share is accounted for by Windows Phone powered Lumia devices or Nokia’s low-end feature phones. Anyway, this is perhaps the first positive report related to the performance of BlackBerry devices in months, so fans of the company can rejoice, even if the company continues to struggle in crucial markets like Europe and North America.
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