BlackBerry CEOs stick to strategy, dismiss analysts

Shares of RIM have tumbled almost 30 percent since late September as analysts downgraded the stock. Their concern is that an invasion of new smartphones from the likes of Apple and Nokia will erode the BlackBerry's dominance as North America's top selling smartphone brand.

But in an interview, RIM's co-chief executives say the company has weathered similar storms in the past and is confident it will keep pace with ripples that are now generating uncertainty in the market.

"When we went public everyone was saying, 'Oh my God, you're going to get crushed by Motorola, Ericsson and paging and this emerging Nokia,'" said Jim Balsillie, one of RIM's co-CEOs. The company launched its initial public offering in 1997.

"I'm not trying to be dismissive, and I'm not trying to be glib, but this has played before, several times. All that's different is there's a couple more zeros on everything."

Although sales of smartphones such as the BlackBerry and Apple's iPhone are still a fraction of the overall mobile phone market, they are growing rapidly while sales of basic mobile phones stagnate.

Worldwide mobile phone sales totaled 308.9 million units in the third quarter, up 0.1 percent from a year earlier, according to market research firm Gartner Inc.

Smartphone sales topped just 41 million units, but that was up 12.8 percent from the same period a year ago.

The market's rapid growth has broken down walls between the corporate and retail markets as smartphones gain mainstream acceptance. Initially the mainstay of executives and other professionals, smartphones are now being snapped up by consumers eager to replace older mobile phones.

The growth also forced RIM to become more responsive to consumer tastes and trends. The company loaded its devices with multimedia features and software aimed at retail users and introduced sleeker models including the BlackBerry Storm, its answer to the iPhone.

"There's no question the stakes got higher," Balsillie said in the interview at RIM's headquarters in Waterloo, Ontario. "The world has shifted to smartphones faster than I expected, really."

DOWNGRADES ARE "JUST SENTIMENT"

That shift represents a threat to RIM, which has long dominated the so-called "enterprise" market in North America, catering to corporations and government departments equipping their employees with smartphones.

Worldwide, Nokia is the top smartphone maker, according to Gartner data, with a 39.3 percent market share. RIM, which employs more than 13,000 people around the world, is second with share of 20.8 percent. Apple is third with 17.1 percent.

"The revolution of product and application service offerings is going to start to crack open the enterprise door and pose a risk for Blackberry," Citi Investment Research analyst Jim Suva wrote to clients earlier this month.

Balsillie said he did not find such analyst reports to be very valuable, adding he pays more attention to industry facts and statistics.

"I pretty much ignore it," he said. "Whether somebody says you're going to get crushed by this, or somebody says you're going to be No. 1, that's just sentiment."

Mike Lazaridis, RIM's co-founder and co-CEO, said he wants to understand what outsiders think of the company's performance, but that their opinions do not dictate the company's strategy.

"If you just sit there chasing the stock all day, you're going to make mistakes," Lazaridis said.

BLACKBERRY BROWSER NEEDS WORK