BlackBerry says it won’t go down road of $50 phone
BlackBerry says it won’t go down road of $50 phones as Z10 sells out in two days in India
Bloomberg News | 13/03/07 | Last Updated: 13/03/07 1:18 PM ET
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AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool Bollywood actor Ranbir Kapoor shows off the new Blackberry Z10 smartphone during its launch in Mumbai, India, in February.
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While Canadian smartphone maker BlackBerry said it plans less expensive devices for emerging markets like India, the company has no plans to get into the $50 to $60 price range to compete with lower-cost Asian rivals.
“Understand where you are playing and resist being talked into segments that you know will not serve your purpose and will not result in shareholder value,” chief executive Thorsten Heins said in a question and answer session at a conference in BlackBerry’s hometown of Waterloo, Ontario. “You will not see us getting into the 50-, 60-buck phone segment. This is not BlackBerry.”
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BlackBerry began selling the Z10 unsubsidized in India last month at a cost of 43,490 rupees ($806), counting on wealthier Indians to build buzz for the company’s new operating system before cheaper BlackBerry 10 models arrive. Sales in emerging markets like Indonesia and India had held up better than in Europe and North America even as sales overall fell by 47% last quarter.
“You will see new products being launched this year based on BlackBerry 10, all fully LTE-capable, the whole 10 yards that are more geared towards those price bands where people need to be,” Heins said.
BlackBerry, formerly known as Research In Motion Ltd., has maintained higher market share in India helped by the popularity of its free instant-messaging service and lower prices than Apple Inc.’s iPhone. The South Asian nation accounts for about 20% of BlackBerry’s Asia-Pacific sales, according to IDC.
Heins said he was surprised by how well the touch-screen Z10 sold in India after its Feb. 26 debut, with five days’ worth of inventory selling out in two days.
“I got an emergency call from my manager from India saying ‘I’m sold out after two days,’” Heins said. “So now we’re scrambling to reload those channels.”
BlackBerry fell 1.2 percent to $13.19 at 11:02 a.m. in New York. Through yesterday the stock had gained 12 percent this year.
Bloomberg.com
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