RIM Named World's Fastest-Growing CompanyRIM Named World's Fastest-Growing Company

Thanks to the success of its BlackBerry handsets, Research In Motion has topped Fortune magazine's list of the world's 100 fastest-growing companies.

The company, which is based in Canada, has seen its profits increase 84% over the past three years, and its revenue has grown 77% over that same period. RIM also has a dominant hold of the enterprise mobility space with its handsets, as well as its infrastructure components like the BlackBerry Enterprise Server and its newer Mobile Voice System.

While the enterprise market will continue to be a cash cow for RIM, much of the future growth of the company will be in the casual market, particularly as a wider audience adopts smartphones. Thanks to consumer-friendly devices like the BlackBerry Storm and the BlackBerry Curve 8900, RIM has been able to successfully crack the mainstream. In its last earnings call, the BlackBerry maker said more than 45% of its approximately 29 million subscribers were non-enterprise users.

RIM is facing an increasingly competitive market though, as Apple's iPhone has been wildly successful in the mainstream market, and it is even beginning to pick up traction in the corporate fields. Nokia still sells the most smartphones in the world, and it is revamping its content strategy to make its handset more attractive. Additionally, the Google-backed Android platform and Palm's webOS have to potential to poach away BlackBerry users.

This is the first time RIM was included on the list, as it was the first year the magazine included companies based outside the United States. Rivals Apple and Google are larger overall, but they were 39th and 68th, respectively, on the list.

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