South Africa and Nigeria are planned to be among the first nations in the world to get the latest BlackBerry 10 devices from struggling Canadian smartphone maker Research in Motion (RIM), when the company unveils the handsets in early 2013.

RIM’s chief executive officer Thorsten Heins, in an interview with technology analyst Arthur Goldstuck published on Gadget.co.za, said that while the company’s user base in the US has shrunk, a country such as SA has been a “very successful market.”

According to research firm IDC’s sales figures on the global smartphone market for the second quarter of 2012, Android comprised 104.8 million units with a 68.1% share, iOS (Apple iPhones) comprised 26 million units with a 18.8% share and BlackBerry comprised 7.4 million units with a 4.8% share.

IDC further says that BlackBerry’s global share of the smartphone market plummeted over 5 percentage points from a year earlier when it stood at 11.5%.

But in SA, research firm GfK says that one out of every four handsets in the country is a smartphone, while BlackBerry devices have accounted for 7 out of the 10 best-selling smartphones in SA in May 2012. South Africa, which has a population of 49 million, has a mobile penetration rate of above 100%, according to BuddeComm research.

Furthermore, researchers at Informa Telecoms & Media say BlackBerry also has the biggest smartphone share in Nigeria, representing 20%-30% of the approximately 5 million smartphone devices in use in that country.

As a result, RIM sees the two African countries as tier one markets for its handset business, resulting in South Africa and Nigeria being among the first nations in the world where the company’s latest BlackBerry 10 device is to go on sale.

In contrast, South Africa and Nigeria are having to wait until probably the end of the year to get Apple’s latest iPhone 5, while the smartphone has already gone on sale in markets such as the US, Japan and Australia in the last three days.

“South Africa is a priority one market for us, and we will acknowledge that with the launch of BlackBerry 10,” said Heins.

“There will be three waves in taking it to global markets, and South Africa and Nigeria are in the top range of wave one launches.

“There’s trust building in a turnaround of RIM in the United States. In the US, we are clearly a turnaround case. In the rest of the world, we are still growing our overall global subscriber base. Other regions in the world are more than compensating for losses in the USA,” Heins added.

The chief executive officer further expressed that his firm is looking more closely at the rest of Africa as well.

“Kenya is a country we are entering right now. Africa has huge growth potential, from North to South,” he said.

Other emerging markets such as the Philippines and Indonesia are also strongholds for BlackBerry, Heins told Goldstuck.

Analysts have told ITWeb this year that perceptions of BlackBerry as a status symbol, in emerging markets such as Nigeria and South Africa, have contributed to its success in these countries.

“I think in many emerging markets it still has that image of being a very desirable, high-end, business and top-end consumer device,” Matthew Reed, Informa Telecoms & Media head of mobile research for the Middle East and Africa, told ITWeb earlier this year.

The popularity of the BlackBerry Messenger service, dubbed BBM, is another factor that has entrenched the brand in emerging countries, say analysts.

Meanwhile, the difficulty in buying Apple’s iPhone on the continent and using its services has helped BlackBerry maintain strong market share.

Thecla Mbongue, a senior research analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media, in a blog post says,
“In the iPhone ecosystem, the use of a bank or credit card is required to register with iTunes. However, few non-Africa based websites allow Africa-based bank cards, except for SA and some North African countries. iTunes doesn't, and without iTunes registration, the iPhone experience is limited to phone calls and emails.”

The high price of iPhones in Africa is another stumbling block to Apple gaining greater smartphone market share on the continent, further limiting its ability to compete against BlackBerry.

”High-end smartphones, such as the iPhone, are sold for $700-$1 000 across sub-Saharan Africa, where, apart from in SA, both prepaid and postpaid users purchase their devices upfront. Such prices limit the number of iPhone users to a tiny percentage of African mobile users,” Mbongue adds.