BlackBerry out of top ten smartphone brands by sales says analyst

coolpad phone.jpgSo who are the top ten smartphone manufacturers in the world? Samsung check, Apple check. Coolpad? Who? Well the Chinese maker has just delivered its Q1 sales figures and according to this analyst has moved into the world’s top ten smartphone brands replacing – get this – BlackBerry.

Apparently Coolpad’s sales are 6.8 million, way above both Nokia (now in 10th) and Blackberry (which drops to 11th) whose sales this quarter are 6.1 and 6.0 million, respectively.

Coolpad is a Chinese brand – made by China Wireless – whose sales trajectory is starting to mirror other Chinese brands like Huawei, ZTE and Lenovo.

The downer though for BlackBerry is that as recently as recently as 2010 it was the world’s second largest smartphone maker. Then again Nokia was top dog in 2011 Q1 – just two years ago.

Tomi Ahonen thinks it is temporary blip for BlackBerry and that the positive response to its 10 series range should propel it back into the list in Q2. As for Nokia, it seems like it is pinning its hopes on developing markets with phones like these to engineer a revival.

Ashley Norris