For the first time, Apple has ousted Ontario-based RIM from the top spot for smartphone shipments in Canada, reports Bloomberg.

In 2011, RIM shipped 2.08 million BlackBerrys in its home market. Apple’s figures for the same period were 2.85 million units, as per data compiled by IDC and Bloomberg.

In 2010, the difference between BlackBerry and iPhone shipments was half a million, in favor of BlackBerry.

iPhone’s increasing popularity in Canada is a clear indication that people in Canada are liking its user-friendly features and wealth of apps compared to other brands.

“For RIM, in its home market, to lose that No. 1 position to iPhone is strategically important,” said Paul Taylor, a fund manager at BMO Harris Private Banking in Toronto. “It does identify, even with a home-country bias, how consumers are responding to the greater functionality of the iPhone.”

Some time back, Thorsten Heins, RIM’s new CEO had announced that RIM would do something “dramatically different” to increase its smartphone sales.

For RIM, sales in Canada fell 23 per cent in the fiscal third quarter from a year earlier. TheUSsales also fell 45 per cent.

Experts see lack of proper advertising and promotion as the primary reason for decline in RIM’s sales, and Apple ousting RIM from the top spot in Canada.

“They got so good at innovation they just expected the product to sell itself,” said Alfred DuPuy, head ofTorontooffice, Interbrand, a research firm. “From a brand perspective, they just lost their way.”

According to Taylor, the biggest challenge ahead of RIM is to work on brand promotion to ensure that products of RIM get appropriate attention from the average consumer.

Apple Canada overtakes RIM in its domestic market