SAMSUNG smartphones have taken the lead in Jamaica from rivals including BlackBerry (BB), reckons Kenneth Moore.

The key accounts manager for Samsung in Latin America, who is also a former employee of BB, said that the market gain has fuelled further investment in the country.

We know that Jamaica is the market for us,” Moore said of Samsung on Thursday at the launch of the Galaxy Note 4 tablet and its Gear S watch at the Tropical Plaza Samsung store in Kingston. “I couldn’t give you figures. I would be giving you wrong numbers and you wouldn’t want that.”

His claim is anecdotal, but it is corroborated in part by trend data analysed by the Jamaica Observer.

BB does not report financial information on the Caribbean, but trend data from US-based Google indicate that the smartphone’s popularity lost its number one position from October 2013 in Jamaica, the biggest Anglophone Caribbean market.

Interest, as a measure of popularity, could eventually reflect in purchasing patterns.

And Jamaicans are now more interested in searching about Samsung than BB or iPhone on the Internet, according to GoogleTrends.

GoogleTrends data highlights that for every pool of searches for devices within Jamaica over the 12 months ending October 2014, Samsung interest averaged 75, outscoring BB at 54 and the iPhone at 53.

The Google search engine geographically compiles searches over time, then affiliated site, GoogleTrends, gauges the popularity of these terms from 0-100.

Last year, in Jamaica, BB scored 59 with Samsung at 47 and the iPhone at 39.

Just seven months prior, Moore was the face of BB as regional head of sales.

He oversaw the launch of BB products, including the Z10 and Z30 aimed to recapture lost market.

Then earlier this year an opening at Samsung emerged and Moore fit the position.

Samsung would have appreciated Moore’s deep contacts on the ground within the region despite being based in Miami, USA.

“People make career changes and you hope for the best,” he told the Observer immediately following the launch on his new position.

In May, the Observer attempted to contact BB for comment on the departure of Moore.

BB responded in September indicating that “Ken was looking for a new challenge with the competition. Nothing more and nothing less”.

As a result, Richard Burey, a Canadian executive of Jamaican decent will oversee regional sales

at BB.

Last month, BB launched a new phone that aims to appeal to its core market.