BlackBerry's share in global smartphone market is officially zero percent

BlackBerry which ruled the roost as a major smartphone player with its flagship BBM messanger has been dying a slow death due to the advent of new smartphone players who enabled the users with cutting edge features.

Once a giant in the market, BlackBerry has struggled to keep pace with the ever increasing competition from fellow competitors like Apple, Samsung and Sony.

As per a research report published by research firm Gartner, in the fourth quarter of 2016, more than 432 million smartphones were sold, and of those, just 207,900 were BlackBerry devices running its own operating system.

That gives the Canadian smartphone company a share of the overall phone market of less than a single percentage point.

In contrast, a whopping 352.7 million smartphones running Google's Android operating system were sold in Q4 2016, making up 81.7% of the market, according to Gartner. In second place is Apple's iOS, which sold 77 million units in the quarter, with 17.9% of the overall market share.

BlackBerry also sells handsets that run Android, like the DTEK60 and the Priv, which aren't included in that 207,900 figure. But Gartner's data confirms what we suspected: BlackBerry's once unassailable independent phone ecosystem is dead in the water.

Meanwhile, Google dominates the numbers game because it gives Android to phone makers for free, making it the operating system of choice for low-cost handsets in countries like India and China. Apple, on the other hand, keeps its iOS in-house and its prices high limiting its reach but maximizing its profits.