The company will work to regain lost market share and customers by bringing out two cheaper Android smartphones later this year, says report.
BlackBerry CEO John Chen says his company will release two new less expensive Android smartphone models later in 2016 in an effort to win back customers and increase sales after its flagship, high-end Android Priv phone failed to catch on with buyers as much as the company had hoped.The Priv (pictured), which BlackBerry targeted at enterprise customers, might have been priced too high at about $700, Chen said in an April 7 article in The National. About 600,000 BlackBerry smartphones of all models were sold by the company in the first quarter of 2016, which is significantly lower than the 850,000 total units that analysts predicted would be sold in the quarter. Chen would not break down how many Priv sales were part of those sales. The Priv is BlackBerry's first-ever Android-powered handset."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," Chen told The National in an interview. "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.'"Based on that feedback from customers, the company will now introduce two lower-priced Android smartphones to try to appeal to customers who want BlackBerry devices and security along with lower price tags, the article reported. One of the two new midrange Android handsets will feature a physical keyboard and the other will include a full touch-screen display. No release dates have yet been announced. Earlier in April, BlackBerry dropped the price of its Priv smartphone to $649, a $50 cut from its previous price, as it tries to increase sales of the device, which features both a touch-screen and a slide-out physical QWERTY keyboard, according to an earlier eWEEK story. net loss of $238 million, compared with net income of $28 million one year prior. For the full year ending Feb. 29, 2016, BlackBerry reported GAAP revenue of $2.2 billion, down 35 percent from the $3.34 billion it reported one year ago. The GAAP revenue reflected a purchase accounting write-down of deferred revenue associated with recent acquisitions. The company reported a loss of 45 cents per share for the fourth quarter, compared with earnings of 5 cents per share a year earlier.Worse for the company was that its reported fourth-quarter revenue of $464 million was $99 million lower than the $563.1 million expected by a survey of Thomson Reuters financial analysts.
- eWeek