The request from my newspaper editor in late 2000 wasn't unusual, but it did demonstrate that a new world was opening up: "Could you find out something about this 'BlackBerry' thing that the City folks are using in Canary Wharf?"
It was clear that personal digital assistants, knows as PDAs, that used mobile phone networks to deliver emails securely, on the move, were entering the mainstream. Research In Motion (RIM), the Canadian company behind the BlackBerry, entranced the Square Mile; bankers and financiers loved being able to scan their emails while they sat in the wine bars that litter London's financial districts, and its sales have ramped up ever since. BlackBerry now has about 55m users worldwide.
But RIM's ascendancy has been challenged in the past two years, as first Apple and then manufacturers using Google's Android mobile operating system made huge inroads into the mobile market. Together, those three companies have smashed the market dominance of Nokia. The Apple iPhone alone is now bigger than Nokia, both in terms of total revenue and profit.
The iPhone revolutionised the entire mobile industry when it hit the market in January 2007. While some people focused on the high price, many in the mobile industry immediately realised it was going to be hugely popular and there was intense competition among carriers to win the contract to sell the iPhone ahead of its launch.
Now smartphones are part of the landscape: IT research company IDC says that 47% of the phones sold in western Europe in the first three months of 2011 were smartphones. In the UK, one-third of adults now has one, according to research published by YouGov in April. Phones that run Google's Android (28%) slightly outnumber iPhones (26%) and RIM's BlackBerry (14%). The remaining 32% are made up of Nokia's Symbian, Microsoft's Windows Mobile, Microsoft's newer Windows Phone, and others.
The BlackBerry first found a market in the business world, but its appeal has spread far wider. Now its key demographics tend to be concentrated at either ends of the pay scale: 10% earn more than £50,000 a year. But teenagers have become hooked on its BlackBerry Messenger application, which lets them chat online without using up text or voice time because it runs on RIM's servers. Those teen users might start to use other RIM products as they grow older – although it is proving difficult to persuade some of them to do so.
That is primarily because of competition from Apple and, more recently, from Android devices. The iPhone has become the most recognised "smartphone" – and Apple does not need to offer cheaper versions, as it did with its iPod, in order to reach every segment of the market.
The iPhone is seen by most people as an aspirational device, partly because it is expensive, but also because Apple's marketing nous meant it was the only smartphone many consumers were aware of until recently.
Early adopters
Apple owners are spread across almost every demographic and location, although it's particularly popular among London's "early adopters" – 42% of smartphone users own one in the capital, compared with 15% who own an Android-enabled phone and 11% who own a BlackBerry.
Android devices, on the other hand, are far more popular among the 25-34 age group. One reason for that is Google has successfully persuaded a myriad of handset makers to build devices that use its operating system – at lots of different price points.
Among the 25-34 group, who typically don't have as much money to spend on smartphones, 36% use an Android phone. They are also popular with retired people, 25% of whom own one.
Nokia, which once cast a giant shadow over the mobile market in the UK, just as it did abroad, has a tiny share of the smartphone market. So too does the Windows Phone. But from later this year, Microsoft will put its operating system on to Nokia phones, in a deal that could transform the fortunes of both groups.
For now, however, the market remains fragmented, and it is impossible to know which platform will win out.
