BlackBerry Ltd Usage On The Rise In London Tubes

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It seems like BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) users are growing on Virgin Media’s WiFi service, which was started in six more London Underground stations, on Friday, says a report from The Inquirer. Services from Virgin Media are provided at the Golders Green, Southgate, West Kensington, Parsons Green, Kilburn and East Putney stations. This comes as welcome news for the Canadian company which has been struggling to make a turnaround.

Something to cheer for BlackBerry

Joe Lathan, director of Virgin Media, said that the company’s WiFi service has been popular with citizens and also foreign visitors. The network carrier claimed that BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) usage on its London Underground WiFi network has surged, almost doubling as people keep track of their emails, check travel updates and send tweets easily, compared to previously.

Virgin Media is working in collaboration with TfL and its wholesale partners to offer a better experience to users across the U.K. capital. However, BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) is not the only operating system which is witnessing increased usage. According to the network carrier, Android and iOS users hold 65% and 30% of usage on the London Underground WiFi, respectively.

BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) gets only the remaining 5%, and that too it has to share with Windows Phone. There are 800,000 connected users to the network, out of which only 20,000 do not have an iPhone or Android Device. There was no information from Virgin Media regarding the percentage of BlackBerry users on its WiFi underground networks.

Lags behind Windows Phone

Separately, in bad news for the Canadian company, Windows Phone has passed BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) for third place after iOS and Android, which occupy the top slots, according to the latest data from Nielsen. The data revealed that Windows Phone has a 3% share of the U.S. smartphone market, compared to 2% by BlackBerry. Nokia has been the forerunner of Windows Phone’s success, growing its market share gradually by adopting the operating system for its Lumia range of phones.

Despite the struggle for BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB), CEO Chen is confident that the company will be profitable in two years, indicating that the process will be an “eight quarter journey.”

“The first thing I have to do is to get into profitability, as well as cash flow breaking even,” he said. According to Chen, the company can post positive cash flow from operations by the end of fiscal 2014, and by next year, it can become profitable.

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