RIM's Death March Continues with OEMs & Consumers (RIMM, AAPL, GOOG, MMI, MSFT, S, T, VZ)

comScore has just released its smartphone market share and the data continues to support an exodus away from the Blackberry from Research in Motion Ltd. (NASDAQ: RIMM).  RIM phones as a percentage of OEM mobile phone subscribers fell to 7.6% in July 2011 from 8.2% in April 2011.  If you look at the Smartphone Platform Market Share, that fell to 21.7% from 25.7% in the same period.

The culprit continues to be Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) for the iPhone and Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) for its Android.  What may seem a bit odd considering the Motorola Mobility Inc. (NYSE: MMI) acquisition by Google is that Motorola saw a drop in OEM market share.  From April to July that dropped 1.5-points to 14.1% from 15.6%… Is Google buying a declining asset even though it claims to be the highly sought after patent portfolio that was being acquired?

The news is not exactly great for Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) and its way-late entrance into smartphones.  As far as total number of smartphone subscribers, the April to July drop was by 1-point to 5.7% from 6.7%.  That bleed is pretty harsh and we cannot wonder if the Windows phones may find the same future as the Zune.  comScore’s full data is here.

Here is some food for thought.  RIM is about to have even more competition from its existing customers.  If AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) is able to absorb T-Mobile, guess how many new iPhone and Android users will get to choose away from RIM.  Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) has also recently migrated over to the iPhone.  Also, what about when Sprint Nextel Corporation (NYSE: S) gets the iPhone as has been reported?  More and more competition, and likely more and more pain.

It was less than two months ago that we tallied up a possible evaporation trail to zero for RIM’s Blackberry as soon as early 2013.  The bad news remains, even if a true ‘zero’ may be a real trailing off that takes far longer at the end of the tail.

JON C. OGG