Group Project: Blackberry Mobile Phones

A report submitted to
Professor Rajesh Nanarpuzha

In partial fulfilment of the requirements of the course

Marketing Management

By
Group B11
Simarpreet Singh – 188240
Ayushraj Chouhan – 188064
Meena Kumari – 188144
Sai Pavan Reddy L – 188206
Sushmendra Kumar – 188122
Section B

On
09-09-2018
5C Analysis

Customers

India has the second most telephone users in the world after China with 113.3 Crore
subscribers as per May 2018. India has one of lowest call tariffs due to high competition.
Similar type of competition also exists in Telephone vendors. Currently Samsung and Xiaomi
captured nearly 50 percent of the market.

Blackberry is one of the prestigious brands in the world. During it’s peak, it had nearly 20
percent of the entire market share. Emails sent over Blackberry devices via BES (Blackberry
Enterprise Server) were encoded with an end-to-end protocol which is completely
independent of the public certificate authority system. Attackers or Hackers who have access
to mobile phone network can easily interpret all the emails sent the IOS and Android devices.
This was impossible with Blackberry emails. Even RIM cannot break into communications.
This made Blackberry huge success in the Corporate world. After success in the Corporate
world, the Curve and Pearl products were introduced into the consumer market.

This allowed Blackberry to grab 6 percent of market share in 2010. Later it grew to 13
percent in 2011. They eyed to grab a 20 percent share which is equal to Samsung’s market
share at that time.

There are five major roles in buying situations

 Initiators: Initiators are those search for the product.

 Decider: Decider make their choice
 Influencers: They have input and influence the decisions
 Purchasers: Who pay for transactions
 Users: Consume the product

In Indian Market the initiators are mostly the students and job going people. For students the
deciders are parents. Most of the time the Customers search through personal sources,
commercial sources and public sources. The Influencers are friends, family but majority of
the influencers are online reviews. According to the survey conducted by us nearly 55 percent
said they buy their phones only if they find positive reviews about the product. For students,
the purchasers are his/her parents and for job going people, they buy it for themselves.
According to the survey conducted by us, most of the customers preferred smartphones. In
smartphones camera quality and battery life are the most important features they look for. In
this fast-paced world, the phone battery should run for at least a complete day. Also,
according to our surface 63 percent prefer onscreen keyboard. But the love for QWERTY
keyboard did not die among customers. 33 percent preferred both QWERTY and onscreen
keyboard. Brand Name is also the most important factor while buying the product as brand is
embedded in the mind of customers.

Company

Blackberry Limited, a Canadian company, is a developer of smartphones and tablets.

Established in 1984, Blackberry was formerly known as Research in Motion (RIM). RIM
produces telecommunication equipment and provides software for industrial use. Initially,
their strategy was to focus on software related technologies however with time, their
approach included forming a licensing partnership with manufacturers like TCL
Communication and amalgamate software portfolio.

Blackberry Pearl 8100 was the first phone that includes features like camera etc. After the
successful launch, the company came with Curve 8300 and Bold 9000. Blackberry was
sustaining a substantial market share growth although Apple launched its first iPhone. During
2011, when Android and iPhone started growing, Blackberry turned the focus towards other
smartphones. In 2011, the company had 79 million users around the world.

The main strengths that Blackberry had over other phones were its security and messaging
system. It was a market leader as they were no one able to compete with it. The use of
encryption and Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (S/MIME) allowed them to
make a stand in the competitors.

Competitive advantage

Security was the focus where Blackberry was the leader in the market. Corporate people are
using Blackberry to integrate it with their VPNs. John Chen, CEO, has focused on the
security from the beginning, because of this government officials are using Blackberry in
large number. Blackberry offers security features like:

1. Cybersecurity Consulting
 a. Acquired Encryption, a UK based cybersecurity firm
b. Introduced SHIELD, a risk assessment program for clients
2. Blackberry Secure
a. A mobile security platform that brings all the products of Blackberry together
b. Launched Enterprise SDK, allowing messaging functionality into applications

QWERTY keypad was also the center of attraction for its phone. It had a unique and classy
design that attracted the large section of customers.

Blackberry in market

When their first phone was introduced, the company took the market by storm. Even though
Apple was growing in the market, Blackberry had 10.5 million subscribers, and after Android
was launched, at the end of 2008, the number of subscribers went to 21 million. But after a
tough competition in the market and internal factors, its growth declined, and the number of
subscribers gets reduced for the first time in 2012. It continued the decline then after with
large rate which turned a significant turning point in one of the largest company. Same
happened with the sales, as they continue to grow till 2012. In 2013, it lost around USD
1billion and in the years 2010 to 2013, the price of stocks was dropped by 87 %, the reason
being the success of the iPhone.

Chart Title
25000

20000

15000

10000

5000

0
2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

Sales (USD)
Weakness and Threats

The Blackberry OS was one of the failings mobile phone had. It couldn’t give a competition
to the Android and iOS. The other problem was they were entirely dependent on the
government bodies and corporate people. They did not focus on the middle class which
comprised of a large population.

The technology was evolving rapidly, and Blackberry was not changing its norms with the
changing environment, and after a period, the market of Blackberry got saturated, and there
was a low chance of growth. Also, they lacked in the production of tablets. These problems
with the company were the causes of reducing their share in the market.

Collaborators

Earlier Blackberry devices were designed and supplied by Blackberry Ltd. Now a group
comprising of TCL Communication (under Blackberry Mobile), Optiemus, and BB Merah
Putih for the global, Indian and, Indonesian markets respectively are using the BlackBerry
brand name under a license.

It has been working with various alliances, internal and external collaborators to bring
something edgy on the table. After assessing the content collaboration solution from 13
vendors, Gartner (according to Critical Capabilities for Content Collaboration Platforms
Report) has given BlackBerry the highest scores in Critical Capabilities for High-Security
Mobility Management and Workforce Productivity and Centralized Content Protection for its
BlackBerry Workspaces solution.

Past alliances:

1. Blackberry Porsche
 This handset, launched in 2011, was critically acclaimed for its Wikitude World Browser
featured reality app experience, HD video recording capabilities, 8GB of onboard
memory and a 1.2GHz processor. Porsche provided an exclusive Porsche Design user
interface on the handset.

2. In October 2016, BlackBerry decided to work with the Ford Motor Company of
Canada to come up with a software for its cars/vehicles.

In 2018, Blackberry announced to collaborate with Jaguar Land Rover (to develop software
for its vehicles). Also, Blackberry announced some strategic decisions to absorb innovations
from external support via ISVs, solution providers, and Blackberry Partner Program.

Competitors

In the Indian market, most of the mobile phone market share is from the smartphone. In that
smartphone market, there are 10 leading companies which have around 76% market share.
Top 5 players Samsung, Xiaomi, Apple, Oppo, Huawei have more than 60% share in
smartphone market. Even though there are high entry barriers, there is a presence of many
competitors which makes the current situation more problematic. Many companies allow
BYOD (Buy Your Own Device) to employees which changed the market landscape.
Nowadays there is no clear differentiation but an overlap between consumer and enterprise
market segments.

Smartphones gain popularity because of its ability to transform a phone into something more
by installing any type of app you need. From productivity to Games apps, you can do
astonishing things on your phone nowadays. But BlackBerry's OS couldn't do this. Even
today there are only a few numbers of applications available.
In the smartphone industry, most of the devices use the Android operating system. Android
phones have major advantages like application support and excellent software, ease of
availability of free apps to download, frequent updates of operating systems for improving
performance, act as a router to share internet and wide availability of options to suit consumer
budget. Most of the Indian marketers like Samsung, Oppo, Vivo, Huawei etc, use Android
software.

Samsung

Samsung is the market leader in the smartphone market in India. Keeping up with the
consumer trends, it uses a simple and user-friendly interface and modifies their devices
accordingly. It provides the customer with various screen sizes, high memory storage
facilities, excellent camera features and enhanced battery life with quick charge technology.
It targets all the segments of customers: Be it the high income or low-income people with
various prices depending on the number of features provided.

Few drawbacks of Samsung phones are that they become sluggish after installation of many
applications. Customers also face frequent hardware issues which leads to increasing
frustration among users.

Xiaomi

Another major competitor is Xiaomi mobile which uses a customized version of Android,
MIUI (MI User Interface). It includes features that the Android version lacks. The main
advantage of Xiaomi mobiles is it gives primary importance to the pricing of its devices. It
manages to sell similar smartphones with great specifications at low prices, which other
brands are selling at almost double the rate. It is highly customizable, having high-quality
hardware with many inbuilt security features. Regular updates in MIUI as per customer
trends helps it to stay updated with current market trends.

Xiaomi has smartphones in 3 different Series depending on customer preferences. The

flagship MI series, which is high priced but still not expensive. The Redmi Series is the most
affordable budget-friendly smartphone series and the Redmi Note Series is the big screen
smartphone priced in between the MI and Redmi series. But these mobiles have many few
drawbacks like Over Heating, Bad Battery Life, frequent connectivity problems for Wi-Fi
and Bluetooth and Slow Performance.

Apple

Apple is another major competitor which uses an IOS operating system. Mainly targeting the
high-end consumers, it features amazing hardware and software support with great
touchscreen sensitivity and excellent battery life. It also has snappy processing, doesn’t
become sluggish even after installing many apps and the camera captures eye-catching
visuals.

But it also has many drawbacks like many of its apps are paid. There is no flash support in
the web browser, Bluetooth is not compatible with other phones, no USB Mass storage mode
and too much dependency on iTunes for loading multimedia content.

Context
In this ever-changing technological world, companies face cut-throat competition from not
only its competitors but also from External factors that might hamper the future growth of an
organization for example: A company might be growing steadily over the years, but if there is
any political or economic Instability within the country, this high profitability or strong
growth will be of no use.

Blackberry, being a giant in the mobile communication market, thrives on innovative

offerings by providing the best possible experiences to their customers. Over the years,
Blackberry has faced a myriad of challenges: Be it the popularity of BBM (Blackberry
messenger) getting usurped by the introduction of WhatsApp or the blackberry play store not
keeping up the pace with the rise of Android or Apple app stores. Despite these challenges,
Blackberry has a vision as well as the resources to regain market share in the future.

The PESTEL (Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environment, and Legal) analysis,
used by companies to arrive at the best possible direction for future growths of an
organization, gives an overview of all the operating challenges that a company might face in
the macro environment other than the competitive challenges.

Political Factors

The political scenario is stable with no major changes expected in the telecommunication
industry in near future. There are prospects that the use of smartphones will increase in the
future because of increased stress on everything getting digitalized in the future. Also, the
Government focusing more on data security and reducing data leaks, this provides Blackberry
with the perfect platform to recapture the Indian market.

Economic Factors

Economic Factors play a key role in this industry as the demand is mostly based on consumer
behaviour. Income levels of people in India are rising which has led to an increase in
demands of consumers. But the recent increase in prices of smartphones due to the
implementation of GST led to a downturn of the economy. Now, Blackberry faces a major
hurdle in meeting the consumer expectations as well as not creating a hole in the pocket of
customers of one the fastest growing economies in the world.
Social Factors

Factors like education, income levels, and lifestyle play an important role in the demand
behaviour of the customer which subsequently affects the sale of a product. With the increase
in the purchasing power of consumers as well as the need to stay connected to everyone
across the globe, the need for smartphones is increasing. With people spending most of their
time on social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, their mental health is
deteriorating. This, in turn, has led to a rise in anti-social groups which would hamper the
future of smartphones.

Technological Factors

Technology is something which can’t be ignored in the modern era. A firm should always do
the technical analysis as well as the rate at which technology can disrupt a business for
sustainable growth. Blackberry tried to keep moving with the same principles with which
they had started, but that backfired and were left stranded at the bottom of the pecking order.
Technology is advancing at an enormous rate with possibilities of the phone getting charged
without the use of charger and smartphones becoming more durable with the possibility of
folding. Also, features like Facial recognition or Augmented reality on the rise, Blackberry
will have to stay on their toes in terms of technology to meet customer demands in the future.

Environmental Factors

Environmental Factors play an important role as manufacturers must comply with various
environmental standards ensuring manufacturing to be eco-friendly. India now allows 100
percent FDI in the Telecommunication sector and the “Make in India” scheme is also being
promoted in each sector to encourage multinational companies to manufacture in India.
Keeping this in mind, Blackberry must follow ethical practices as well as encourage practices
like product recycling to contribute towards society in their own small way.

Legal Factors

Before entering any market, a company must evaluate the current market scenario to protect
its secrets and the competitive edge it holds over its competitors. Legal factors include
infringement of any patents, Health and safety laws, Data protection etc. Blackberry must
also adhere to the regulations of TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) to avoid any
penalties in the future.

SEGMENTATION

Market has been primarily segmented based on demographics i.e., age and income and then
based on customer behavior i.e., usage rate. Consumers frequently purchasing mobile phones
to be heavy users of our product. On the combination of multiple segments, we totally got ten
segmentation criteria. These segments are measurable, differentiable, accessible, actionable
and substantial that is they satisfy all the segmentation required criteria.

Target
Market

Age Income

20- 20-40 40-60 60+ Low Medium High

User Non-User

Figure 1: Segmentation bases

TARGETING

Porter’s five forces analysis has been performed to select the most attractive target.
Figure 3: Porters Five Force Analysis

Figure 4: Age distribution

Figure : Income distribution
Figure : Purpose of Access

As per the latest data released by the financial authority of India, we captured the data
regarding age wise income distribution. We target the segment based on the income levels of
the customer as income level from $2.3 to $15.4 annual income customers and the age
distribution especially from 20-35 years. Market segment with these income levels and age
distribution are in high proportion compared to the other segments and the disposal levels of
the income and the usage rate of these segments are high and are growing year by year.
Hence, this segment is opted as the target market.

The target audience is customers having an age levels between 20 and 35 years, the income
levels between $3 -$15 millions and the heavy users. They mainly comprise of young
students, businessman and employees who are frequent usagers. After deciding which
market segment, we will target, we must decide how it is going to position in the minds of
consumer.

Based on the responses in the exhibit,

Our Blackberry product is the most securable and dual keyboard among all the smartphone
marketers in the industry because of the advanced messaging app, camera and apps with
finger print sensor locking system and usage of qwerty keyboard and onscreen keyboard.

Identifying & Analysing Competitors:

The potential competitors in the given segment are Samsung, Apple, Xiaomi,Oppo,Vivo.
These all are offering the same varieties in the segment ,features and the prices are also
within the same range. The customers are to be opted one among these products. In the
current market, there is no one available featuring the most securable messaging app and the
dual usage of Keyboard, within the medium price range.
POINTS OF DIFFERENCE

 Common messaging features

  Lightweight and long-lasting
 Enhanced security system for camera and messaging

POINTS OF PARITY

 Smartphone
 Medium priced product
 Modern, stylish and low weight metal
 Android operating system and with almost same features in camera, memory

BRAND MANTRA: “Smart and Secure Always”

BRAND POSITIONING BULL’S EYE

Figure: Bull’s eye

4 P Analysis

Product

Product is something that can be offered to the customer to satisfy need or want. Mobile
phones come under Durable and Shopping goods. They require selling and also service. They
also require seller warranties and guarantees. Consumers compare them on basis of quality,
brand, style, price and suitability.

Blackberry new model Key2 was launched in June 2018 and the price in India starts at
RS.42,990. It is successor of Blackberry’s previous product Blackberry Key1

Features:

1. Touch Screen + Qwerty: Blackberry Key2 has a 4.5-inch touch screen along with 5
point multi-touch capacitive touch keyboard. It also features with physical QWERTY
keyboard. The keys of QWERTY keyboard are also shortcuts to various application.
2. Camera: Blackberry Key2 is the first Dual Camera phone in Blackberry. It features a
12+12 MP dual rear camera with dual tone LED flash, 4K video recording at 30fps,
HDR and an 8 MP front camera for selfie’s.
3. Screen Resolution: The resolution of the screen is 1620*1080 pixels with a 434 ppi
pixel density.
4. RAM and Internal Storage: Blackberry Key2 comes with a 6GB RAM 2.2Ghz
processor which ensures smooth usage of phone even while playing high end games.
It also has a 64GB internal memory.

It has one of the most intelligent keyboards ever. It features the new speed keys that activate
shortcuts for applications. This helps in initiating any application without coming to the home
screen. Blackberry Key2 is most secure android OS phone. DTEK by Blackberry lets
customer know which applications are using your info.

There are several Pros and Cons of BB Key2

Pros

 OS Android 8.1 (Oreo)

 Fast Battery Charging (50 percent in 36 minutes)
 Internal Storage (64/128 GB)
  6 GB RAM
 Physical Qwerty keyboard with application shortcuts
 Multitouch Display
 12+12MP camera with LED flash
 Common messaging app
 DTEK

Cons

 Small Screen
 Expensive
 Average Performance
 Landscape usage

Comparing Blackberry Key2 with similar price range leaders like Samsung Galaxy S8 and
OnePlus 6.

BB KEY2 Samsung Galaxy S8 OnePlus 6

Size 4.5 inches, 60.0 cm2 5.8 inches, 84.8 cm2 6.28 inches, 98.4 cm2
Resolution 1080 x 1620 pixels, 1440 x 2960 pixels, 1080 x 2280 pixels,
3:2 ratio 18.5:9 ratio 19:9 ratio
OS Android 8.1 (Oreo) Android 7.0 Android 8.1 (Oreo)
(Nougat)
Internal 64/128 GB, 6 GB 64 GB, 4 GB RAM 128/256 GB, 8 GB
RAM RAM or 64 GB, 6 GB
RAM
Battery 3500 mAH 3000 mAH 3300 mAH
Camera 12+12 MP rear and 8 12MP rear and 8 20+16 MP rear and 16
MP front Camera MP front Camera MP front Camera
PRICE Rs.42,990 Rs.43,200 Rs.39,999
Place

While coming back into the market, Blackberry was in a fix whether to go for direct or
indirect sales. Earlier it used to believe in direct sales where they used to hire a youth icon
like Ranbir Kapoor for promotion and people would buy from nearby stores. This resulted in
a price war between distributors where everyone charged different prices for the same
product. Everyone in the channel was trying to get maximum margins out of the product till
the time it reached the customers.

So to tackle these issues, TCL decided to keep the sales exclusive to only one online retailer
where online retailers are also in a war with each other. They decided to sell their new
products Key One and Key2 exclusively on only one online retailer i.e. Amazon. As the
online market is increasing at the rate of almost 28 per cent every year and almost one-third
of the smart phones in India selling online last year, It’ll act as an advantage as well as there
will be no different prices available for the same product in the Indian market.

Also to tackle the increasing manufacturing and production costs, It has entered into a
partnership with Delhi based manufacturer Opteimus Infracom which will be handling the
manufacturing, designing, and marketing Blackberry smart phones in the country and also in
neighboring markets such as Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal. Some of the advantages of
these tie ups are:

 New devices will focus on Indian specific problems such as better camera quality or
high screen resolution.
 The other two title holders such as TCL and BB Merah Putah could also design their
respective phones as well as sell them under the same umbrella
 If TCL agrees, India could be made the hub of manufacturing where the products will
be manufactured under the license of Opteimus in Noida. This could result in
reduction of prices of blackberry phones globally as well.
Future Pipeline

As mentioned by the CEO of the company, they are going for an aggressive strategy where
they have a lot of products in their pipeline and want to have products in each and every
category.

Opteimus has targeted to capture 10-12 per cent of the premium phone market by the end of
this year. They believe that they are beginning from scratch and need to focus on USP. If
their USP is security, then they’ll continue their discourse around security and convince
people about the importance of security. They also say that that they are no longer
concentrating on business and enterprises customers alone. They want the general customer
to focus on security in near future where data hacking is on the rise and keeping in mind that
all transactions are taking place online nowadays, it’s important that everything remains
secured and protected for an individual’s benefit.

PROMOTION

Marketing communication involves reaching out to the target customers via activities that add
to product’s brand equity and propel the sales in many ways such as creating brand
awareness, saving the brand image in customer’s mind and strengthening the relation
between the consumer and the brand. Previously blackberry focussed on its ‘Email-on-the-
go’ feature of its mobile phone that targeted and appealed corporate professionals in the
sectors of banking, healthcare and insurance. In order to communicate the brand knowledge
of Key2 (as the youth is aware the brand of Blackberry) to the target customer i.e. youth aged
between 20-40 years who are very sceptic about the features and uniqueness of the phone
they use. Our objective of communication is to build the brand awareness and brand attitude
towards Blackberry Key2.

Design of the communication:

Message Strategy:

The brand message is going to be “It is not phone, it is your need of the hour”, which would
be highlighting the unique feature of securing the personal data that the customer would want
to keep safe and online too if needed. It will be easy to use or personalize the keypad.
Creative strategy:

The strategy of Informational appeal would focus on the safety features inbuilt in the Key2
device which is not hackable. The message will highlight the current scenarios of data breach
and leakages which are leading to financial losses as well as psychological difficulties too. It
will touch upon the emotional aspect of the consumers who buy smartphones without giving
major concerns to the data safety aspects of their mobile phones and later regret the decision
of the purchase.

Message source:

The means of spreading the message would be using celebrity endorsements i.e. Ranbir
Kapoor. According to Abraham Koshy, Professor, Marketing, IIM Ahmedabad, “Ranbir
Kapoor has a strong connect with the youth and he brings in credibility to the brand. In many
of his associations, the personality of the actor and his reputation go hand in hand.”
Therefore, associating Ranbir Kapoor with the image of Blackberry appears as a logical
decision to connect with youth.

Communication channel:

For personal communication, advocate channel of sales people will be used to create buzz
among the youngsters in youth clubs and colleges for a duration of 1 month

For non-personal communication i.e. mass communication, informative advertising on

Televisions and social media would be used.

TV advertising: It gives highest returns among the mass media channels.

One advertisement during the telecast of a primetime show or India Pakistan cricket match
ensures that it is seen by atleast 200 million TV viewers (approx.). Rs.3,50,000/- for 10
second duration will be spent, it comes to roughly Rs.2 per 1,000 viewers.

Frequency= 25 times between 6.00pm to 12.00pm, Assuming impact=1.5, reach= Rs. 20

crores for Zee channel

Weighted number of exposures =22,500 crore, Advertising cost for 1 month= Rs.
26,25,00,000 per channel
Social media advertising:

On facebook, 3 sets will be used i.e. average Cost per 1000 impression, average cost per
click for link clicks and average cost per video view.
Fixed cost = Rs. 40/day. 3 set of campaign running will cost minimum Rs. 3600.

Print media
It employs the process of picture, headline, copy. Following newspapers would be used
to promote Blackberry key2
1. Times of India- it sells around 11,00,000 copies, Rs. 5000/day in all the regions
around Delhi, varies in other regions.
2. Navbharat Times: Around Delhi region it will cost around Rs. 500/day. It draws
readers strength of 6,40,000.

Billboards and Hoardings:

The creative message will be displayed on billboards at busy traffic signal points in the
cities since it will draw huge attention and have good impact. It will cost around Rs.
30,000 in smaller cities and Rs. 3,50,000 in metro cities.

Pricing

Traditionally Price operates as a major determinant of buyer choice while buying a

smartphone. With the internet changing way how the buyers and sellers interact, it is
important that the company keeps on monitoring the customer behavior daily to cater to their
changing needs. Blackberry introduced their latest entrant Key2 in august in collaboration
with TCL. Bringing back the physical keyboard in this world of touch phones was a major
risk that blackberry has taken. But some loyal customers of blackberry still like qwerty
keypad to write long business mails or messages.

With the Indian market dominated by Samsung and One Plus in the Rs.30,000-Rs.45,000, it
was a major risk keeping the prices higher than their closest competitors. Here is a list of all
the phones available in the market comparing it with the blackberry Key2.While setting the
price they followed the following steps:

Objective
While back in 2011 when they were at their peak, they targeted the business people as it was
phone renowned to be user friendly for people always on e-mails and doing business. But this
time they decided to focus more on the youth as they were the ones who were going to
become future leaders. Also, their loyal customer had shifted loyalties in the last five years
where they were rarely present in the market.

Comparing with its Closest Rivals

Next thing that they kept in mind was the lost market that they had to capture. Recently by
the end of 2017 they had almost negligible market share in Smartphone industry. So, they
have decided to launch products catering to people’s need so that they can capture 10-12 per
cent of market by the end of two years

Taking into context all the customer needs, Here is how Key2 fares when compared to its
closest competitors:

Product Price
Blackberry Key2 Rs, 42,990
OnePlus6 Rs.34,999
Samsung S8 Rs. 41,150

Blackberry comes with both qwerty as well as the touch keypad. But as far as overall
performance is considered One Plus is considered, it’s the industry leader with it capturing
more than 40 per cent in this segment. Its offering a complete package that a consumer might
want considering the current market.

One of the reasons of low cost is the low cost production. It manufactures its product in
China where the labour is cheap and the parts are also cheap. It has an established assembly
line and also in house production.

Considering blackberry, it always lacked behind its competitors as they always chose south
Asian nations (that has cheap labour and production cost) .After years of in-house production,
it has stopped as it has started manufacturing with Chinese giant TLC. Obviously when you
outsource the manufacturing, it results in your price going up as the company also has
margins related to the sale of the product. And with limited sales only, the other company
reaches its break-even with the sales of just few hundreds of devices all around the world.
The retailers like electronic stores or online giants do not prefer to sell a product that has so
high cost with such low demand because there is not margin there in it for the retailers. So
companies resort to promotional pricing like special event pricing or special customer pricing
to attract customer .

After Blackberry released Key2, it slashed the prices of Key one to keep it in the market as
well because launching a same product in the same product would result in cannibalizing of
products.

Recommendations

To fulfill their desire of capturing 10-12 per cent of market share, following should be the
steps Blackberry should be taking to compete with their other competitors:

 There is not much difference in the speed of typing whether we use Qwerty or the
Touch keypad. So the Qwerty one could be made optional so that the screen size also
increases which could offer better visual experience for example: while viewing
Youtube or Netflix
 Still the blackberry touch is way behind its competitor. So they must use OLED
screen for better consumer experience while using the product
 Create a brand equity: Rather than establishing products in the same price range they
should focus more on improving their marketing strategy as people have forgotten
about the company
 Experience Stores: They could set –up experience stores only for people to view what
all features are being offered by the company so that people understand the points of
difference which they are offering
References
1. https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/feature/2473044/6-reasons-blackberry-crumbled-in-the-
smartphone-market/page/2 /
2. https://indianexpress.com/article/technology/tech-news-technology/all-may-not-be-lost-for-
struggling-nokia-blackberry-2885355/
3. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/062315/blackberry-story-constant-success-
failure.asp/
4. https://www.statista.com/statistics/263439/global-market-share-held-by-rim-smartphones/
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlackBerry_Limited#2011%E2%80%932015:_Strategic_changes_a
nd_restructuring
6. https://www.strategicmanagementinsight.com/swot-analyses/blackberry-swot-analysis.html
7. https://www.computerweekly.com/blog/Inspect-a-Gadget/5-of-the-best-smartphone-
collaborations
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