Research in Motion’s chief marketing officer Fank Boulben has said that the company’s new phones running BlackBerry 10 software will be impressive when they arrive in early 2013.

Boulben said that the new phones will have features not found in its current offerings, most notable one perhaps being multitasking. He said the new phones will allow for “seamless” switching between apps without having to return to the home screen and stressed that the “underlying operating system is truly multitasking”.

Naturally, launching the devices is only part of the solution for the troubled handset maker, and even the launch will come a year later than analysts expected. Only then can the company start the task of turning its fortunes around, and with the competition tougher than ever, it will not be an easy one.

RIM has fallen behind the competition both tech and plain feature-wise. The company’s phone sales dropped by as much as 41 percent in the last quarter and its market share in the US melted from 41 percent in 2007 to less than 4 percent in Q1 2012.  

Another important part of the puzzle are application stores, and RIM’s store has less than 100,000, which is at least five times less than Apple’s or Google’s. Seeing as  how RIM won’t have much chance to remedy that until 2013, and rightfully assuming that the competition won’t sit idle, things don’t look good. Heck, even the CEO uses Samsung’s Galaxy S III.

Boulben noted that the smartphone market is still new and seeing as how U.S. customers replace their phones every 18 months in average, that is where RIM hopes to come in. He said 2013 will be the year when RIM will be present in a “larger market”.

More here.