Blackberry success with consumers defies recession

By Wojtek Dabrowski

TORONTO (Reuters) - If a deep global recession has eroded consumer confidence, you wouldn't know it by looking at the millions of people who are snapping up flashy BlackBerry smartphones made by Research In Motion (RIM.TO)(RIMM.O).

RIM revealed on Thursday that 70 percent of the 3.9 million subscribers it added in the three months ended Feb 29 were "non-enterprise" -- the company's term for the broader consumer market.

About half of RIM's 25 million-strong subscriber base now falls in this category. That's a huge shift for a company that has pushed hard to diversify its user base beyond the corporate executives, lawyers, politicians and other professionals that have been its mainstay.

The boom on the retail side, helped by wireless carrier promotions, has surpassed RIM's own expectations as well as those of investors and analysts.

Indeed, RIM suggested strength in the consumer market won't slow any time soon. The company forecast growth of up to 3.9 million subscribers for the three months ending May 30, and offered a profit outlook that topped analysts' earlier expectations.

"What RIM has pulled off really is a fairly significant coup in hitting market segments that it could not reach with its earlier range of products," said independent technology analyst Carmi Levy.

This coup comes at a strategically important time, with RIM, Apple, Nokia and other rivals jostling for ever bigger pieces of the global smartphone market even as a recession stifles some of the growth.

To that end, RIM has rolled out a wide swath of devices, from the multimedia-laden Pearl and Curve models to the touchscreen-based BlackBerry Storm.