RIM Suffers First Decline in Smartphone Shipments as Research Firm Predicts Single-Digit Share Price

New data from research firm IDC shows that RIM has suffered its first ever year-over-year decline in global smartphone shipments (comparing third quarters of the calendar years).

This week, research firm Canalys reported that BlackBerry marketshare in the US has shrunk to just 9%. America is—or perhaps was—both the largest and most profitable region for RIM.

The Waterloo company's stock has been battered heavily over the past couple of years, plummeting from a seemingly unstoppable high of more than $140 per share to an unthinkable low of below $20—a number not seen since the company was still a fledgling in the smartphone market back in the summer of 2004.

Toronto-based research firm Veritas released a report this week that RIM will not only drop to single-digit marketshare in North America, its share price is likely to decline into single-digit territory as well.

With RIM out of gas, Android-powered HTC surged past the Canadian company by doubling units shipped year-over-year. Apple and Samsung are now leagues ahead of the struggling BlackBerry maker—even Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 is gaining ground.

Myriad companies have slashed the prices of RIM's PlayBook tablet in a desparate bid to drive sales.