14 DAY TRIAL // It’s pretty clear that BlackBerry has lost all the market that it owned a few years ago and that BB10 OS is unlikely to come back. The Canadian company has already realized that its only chance to keep building mobile phones is to put Android on them.
BlackBerry PRIV is the company’s first Android smartphone, but considering the latest financial results announced by the company, the handset was a bit of a failure. The PRIV was not ready for prime time when it comes to specs and features, but the main downside of the device is the high price.
According to The National, BlackBerry’s CEO John Chen has admitted that it was a mistake to launch a top-tier product as the company’s first Android smartphone.
“The fact that we came out with a high end phone [as our first Android device] was probably not as wise as it should have been. A lot of enterprise customers have said to us, ‘I want to buy your phone but $700 is a little too steep for me. I’m more interested in a $400 device,’” explains John Chen.
The last chance for BlackBerry’s smartphone business
Even if analysts forecasted BlackBerry would sell around 850,000 PRIV units, only 600,000 were shipped until the end of March. The good news is the losses of the mobile division were cut in half, which means there’s hope for BlackBerry on the smartphone market.
John Chen is still optimistic that he can save BlackBerry mobile division, which is why they will launch two new Android smartphones by the end of the year.
However, this time, BlackBerry will switch its focus on the mid-range market as both devices will cost no more than $400 outright. If these devices don't sell as well as they should, then BlackBerry’s hardware division might be a thing of the past.
“Since I started at the company I’ve been saying I’ll make the handset business profitable. If I can’t make it profitable because the market won’t let me, then I’ll get out of the handset business. I love our handset business, but we need to make money,” adds Chen.