iPhone 3GS Making Inroads with Businesses, Could Boost AAPL

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Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhone has gradually gained strength in the enterprise mobile phone market where it competes with Research in Motion’s (NASDAQ:RIMM) dominant BlackBerry, which has 70% share amongst enterprises.

We believe the iPhone could make fast inroads into the enterprise mobile phone market with the help of the improved iPhone 3GS and the increasing availability of productivity applications.  iPhone has successfully been integrated into several major enterprises already such as Kraft Foods, Oracle and Amylin Pharmaceuticals.

Below we explain why we believe iPhone could gain market share in enterprise segment at the expense of RIM and what impact the changes in market share can have on the stocks of Apple and RIM.

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70% of Fortune 200 Companies Piloting iPhone 3GS

Over 70% of Fortune 200 companies are piloting the iPhone.  This figure has doubled since the iPhone 3GS first shipped in the summer of 2009.  Business customers have ranked the iPhone the number one smartphone in JD Powers’ Customer Satisfaction Survey for the second year in a row suggesting that BlackBerry’s edge in the business market could erode quickly.

We believe that the faster speed and improved security features of the iPhone 3GS are driving increased consideration by businesses.  The iPhone’s improved security features include VPN login, remote wipe and encrypted backup.

In addition to the security features, iPhone 3GS’ intuitive interface, superior browsing experience, and rapidly evolving developer tool kit make business-centric applications far more appealing on an iPhone than on a BlackBerry.  The iPhone has around 150,000 apps on its platform, while the BlackBerry has only around 5,000 apps.  iPhone Apps were downloaded about 6.6 billion times in 2009.

iPhone could grow its overall market share to 11%

Apple sold around 25 million iPhones in 2009, amounting to market share of 2%, compared to 36 million BlackBerries sold by RIM during the same period, implying RIM market share of 3%.

We believe iPhone’s continued success in the consumer and enterprise segment could help it increase its market share to 11% by the end of Trefis forecast period.  However, we do believe the BlackBerry will continue to gain share within the overall mobile phone market and that RIM will have 8% market share by the end of Trefis forecast period.

You can modify our forecasts for iPhone market share to see how Apple’s stock would be impacted if market share gains were higher than we forecast as a result of greater adoption by businesses.

You can also modify our forecasts for BlackBerry market share to see how RIM’s stock would be impacted if its market share were not to grow as much as we forecast as a result of losing share to Apple’s iPhone.

For additional analysis and forecasts, here is our complete model for Apple’s stock and our complete model for RIM’s stock.