1. akhenatongup's Avatar
    04-01-16 06:41 AM
  2. bakron1's Avatar
    Does not surprise me at all, when you don't advertise the product and price it higher then your competition, this can be expected. I still say they should have priced it at 569.00 US and it would have attracted a bigger audience, but I am not the one with the fancy marketing degrees making the decisions in those corporate offices up there in Waterloo.
    04-01-16 06:48 AM
  3. Maxxxpower's Avatar
    Blackberrys smartphone divison won't survive. Too many CEOs have done too many mistakes.
    04-01-16 06:52 AM
  4. app_Developer's Avatar
    Does not surprise me at all, when you don't advertise the product and price it higher then your competition, this can be expected. I still say they should have priced it at 569.00 US and it would have attracted a bigger audience, but I am not the one with the fancy marketing degrees making the decisions in those corporate offices up there in Waterloo.
    But if you price it at $569 and also spend money on advertising, then you can't make money on the phone at all. BBRY doesn't have the scale that Samsung and Apple do. Rock, meet hard place.

    They've instead chosen to sell a small number of phones to their diehard fanbase and enterprise customers at a high price to keep some revenue coming in while they move to software. Keep in mind this hardware revenue is still a very significant 40% of their total.
    04-01-16 07:00 AM
  5. MrGlenn's Avatar
    But if you price it at $569 and also spend money on advertising, then you can't make money on the phone at all. BBRY doesn't have the scale that Samsung and Apple do. Rock, meet hard place.
    What advertising? I mean I get your point, but they've clearly been pricing every device too high even for their fanbase, because each of their devices ends up only capable of competing with mid-range/budget competitor's devices, and they keep dropping in sales. So even that fanbase approach is failing.

    BlackBerry 10, Passport signed.
    04-01-16 07:21 AM
  6. bakron1's Avatar
    But if you price it at $569 and also spend money on advertising, then you can't make money on the phone at all. BBRY doesn't have the scale that Samsung and Apple do. Rock, meet hard place.

    They've instead chosen to sell a small number of phones to their diehard fanbase and enterprise customers at a high price to keep some revenue coming in while they move to software. Keep in mind this hardware revenue is still a very significant 40% of their total.
    I understand all of that, but when I go into a local T-Mobile store here in the USA and see the Priv mixed in with last years devices and not even a dam sign telling someone it's there? As a business person myself, making some attractive posters showcasing the Priv's features and at least telling folks that the device exist goes a long way and is not going to break the bank as far as advertising budgets go, no wonder their sales are down.
    04-01-16 07:22 AM
  7. early2bed's Avatar
    If you sell 600K units per quarter, even if you allocate $25 per unit for advertising, that's a $15 million ad campaign which is hardly anything. Most smartphone ad campaigns that you would remember are $100 million or more.
    04-01-16 07:38 AM
  8. akhenatongup's Avatar
    Chief Executive John Chen told analysts that smartphone sales were below company expectations. This was partly due to delays in contract negotiations with carriers, including Verizon, about its Android-based Priv device, he said.
    04-01-16 08:10 AM
  9. kevwill6115's Avatar
    Chief Executive John Chen told analysts that smartphone sales were below company expectations. This was partly due to delays in contract negotiations with carriers, including Verizon, about its Android-based Priv device, he said.
    Sales should pick up now that it's on Verizon.

    Posted via CB10
    asublimeday and luc4625 like this.
    04-01-16 08:12 AM
  10. irweezyy's Avatar
    They said hardware is profitable and that it is approx 40% of their revenue. I don't see hardware going anywhere until it falls to like 15% revenue and even only then if it is no longer profitable. Even if it falls to 1% yet stays profitable, what would be the reason to get rid of it?

    Posted via the CrackBerry App for Android
    luc4625 likes this.
    04-01-16 08:14 AM
  11. Deckard79's Avatar
    Sales should pick up now that it's on Verizon.

    Posted via CB10
    Sales will decrease - this is now a 6-month-old product.

    Posted via the CrackBerry App for Android
    04-01-16 08:16 AM
  12. app_Developer's Avatar
    They said hardware is profitable and that it is approx 40% of their revenue. I don't see hardware going anywhere until it falls to like 15% revenue and even only then if it is no longer profitable. Even if it falls to 1% yet stays profitable, what would be the reason to get rid of it?
    They did not say hardware was profitable, they said they reduced the losses by half. Big difference.

    Chen said that they need to sell 3M devices to break even in FY2017 if ASP remains around $300. However, he said he's also considering reducing the price on the Priv, and in that case the break even point would obviously rise above that 3M mark.

    He thinks they have a shot at breaking even in hardware, but he reiterated that if that does not happen he will shut it down.
    04-01-16 08:18 AM
  13. donnation's Avatar
    Sales should pick up now that it's on Verizon.

    Posted via CB10
    How? Every earnings report its the same thing. Well it was only on this carrier or that carrier and it will pick up now that it's on this carrier. You can't sell what people don't know exists.
    qwerty4ever and andy957 like this.
    04-01-16 08:26 AM
  14. laid-back's Avatar
    Does not surprise me at all, when you don't advertise the product and price it higher then your competition, this can be expected. I still say they should have priced it at 569.00 US and it would have attracted a bigger audience, but I am not the one with the fancy marketing degrees making the decisions in those corporate offices up there in Waterloo.
    No need for a fancy degree really, just common sense. there was a very tiny short lived marketing effort for the Priv, so no wonder the sales are not stellar. however, the company knows what is best for them. if the hardware division is still profitable and is bringing in the cash then it should survive. i think the goal here is for the hardware division to stay alive not to compete with Samsung. The Verizon release should impact positively the next quarter numbers in addition to other roll outs in other countries.
    04-01-16 08:27 AM
  15. PauloPImenta's Avatar
    Sales will decrease - this is now a 6-month-old product.

    Posted via the CrackBerry App for Android
    There are now new players in town with better specs and identical price, such as Sammy S7 and LG G5. Momentum is lost unless Priv's price drops to USD 500.

    Posted via CB10
    04-01-16 08:28 AM
  16. crucial bbq's Avatar
    According to the article: they sold 31% less handsets in Q4/16 than they did in Q4/15. In Q4/15 Chen said they moved 1.6M handsets and saw revenue from 1.3M of them. Without doing any math you can intuit they moved more handsets this quarter than they did in Q3/16. So the trend went up, not down.

    Also mentioned in the article is Chen's road map for handsets; making them profitable one year from now. This falls in line with what Chen said in interview after the Q3/16 call about the PRIV continuing into 2017 at a reduced price and the rumors of two more handsets being released later in 2016.

    We all know that Chen and high hopes for the PRIV, perhaps even unrealistic hopes. Yet just because sales did not reach his hopes does not mean that sales totally sucked, either.

    The sky is not falling.

    Posted via CB PRIV.
    04-01-16 08:48 AM
  17. donnation's Avatar
    According to the article: they sold 31% less handsets in Q4/16 than they did in Q4/15. In Q4/15 Chen said they moved 1.6M handsets and saw revenue from 1.3M of them. Without doing any math you can intuit they moved more handsets this quarter than they did in Q3/16. So the trend went up, not down.

    Also mentioned in the article is Chen's road map for handsets; making them profitable one year from now. This falls in line with what Chen said in interview after the Q3/16 call about the PRIV continuing into 2017 at a reduced price and the rumors of two more handsets being released later in 2016.

    We all know that Chen and high hopes for the PRIV, perhaps even unrealistic hopes. Yet just because sales did not reach his hopes does not mean that sales totally sucked, either.

    The sky is not falling.

    Posted via CB PRIV.
    They said they moved 600,000 handsets.
    04-01-16 08:58 AM
  18. howarmat's Avatar
    According to the article: they sold 31% less handsets in Q4/16 than they did in Q4/15. In Q4/15 Chen said they moved 1.6M handsets and saw revenue from 1.3M of them. Without doing any math you can intuit they moved more handsets this quarter than they did in Q3/16. So the trend went up, not down.

    Also mentioned in the article is Chen's road map for handsets; making them profitable one year from now. This falls in line with what Chen said in interview after the Q3/16 call about the PRIV continuing into 2017 at a reduced price and the rumors of two more handsets being released later in 2016.

    We all know that Chen and high hopes for the PRIV, perhaps even unrealistic hopes. Yet just because sales did not reach his hopes does not mean that sales totally sucked, either.

    The sky is not falling.

    Posted via CB PRIV.
    that 31% is based on the rev and not actual device numbers. They moved 600k devices this quarter which is down 100k from last qtr
    techvisor and JeepBB like this.
    04-01-16 09:08 AM
  19. laid-back's Avatar
    we will have to wait another quarter to see what the trend is
    04-01-16 09:44 AM
  20. Taigatrommel's Avatar
    Sales should pick up now that it's on Verizon.

    Posted via CB10
    I honestly doubt it. Verizon might be the biggest carrier in the US, but that still is just one carrier in one market. This release won't make Priv sales skyrocket, especially considering this phone is already nearing the six months threshold, with new generation phones like Galaxy S7 or LG G5 either available or just around the corner.

    There also still is the price situation, IMHO the Priv has been priced too high at the beginning and the situation didn't get better, it got worse. Right now in Germany a Samsung Galaxy S7 costs almost 40 bucks less than a Priv. The S7 Edge is about 80 bucks more. The G5 hasn't been released yet, but you can already preorder it for less than a Priv. Don't even consider looking at deals for last year's phones like S6, G4, Z5 or the X Style - those offer considerably better deals than the Priv.
    BlackBerry hasn't adjusted the price, at least traditional consumers who got originally interested in the Priv might think twice now once they compare pricing.
    04-01-16 09:49 AM
  21. akhenatongup's Avatar
    John Chen on CNBC now, I will paraphrase, but he said by September if he cannot see a clear window into hardware profitability, he will move to being a software company only. It caused the interviewer to give a "ok, wow".
    04-01-16 09:54 AM
  22. crucial bbq's Avatar
    that 31% is based on the rev and not actual device numbers. They moved 600k devices this quarter which is down 100k from last qtr
    To both you and donnation:

    I was going by the linked article only. I took "hardware sales" to mean units shipped but not necessarily sold. However, if hardware revenue only dropped by 31% considering at most 1M less sales, that's still not too shabby, is it?

    Posted via CB PRIV.
    04-01-16 10:07 AM
  23. Taigatrommel's Avatar
    John Chen on CNBC now, I will paraphrase, but he said by September if he cannot see a clear window into hardware profitability, he will move to being a software company only. It caused the interviewer to give a "ok, wow".
    If he *really* wants to get traction for the hardware business, he needs a better plan for future projects. IMHO the Priv could've done *much* better than it did. The negative aspects in terms of build quality could've been easily avoided if they wanted to. The press loved or at least liked the phone, major critical points always have been build quality and price. They could've priced it more agressively. Also they could have started better marketing.
    They could, they could, they could... but they didn't. Hardware won't save itself in a miracle way.
    Uzi and andy957 like this.
    04-01-16 10:12 AM
  24. crucial bbq's Avatar
    I honestly doubt it. Verizon might be the biggest carrier in the US, but that still is just one carrier in one market. This release won't make Priv sales skyrocket, especially considering this phone is already nearing the six months threshold, with new generation phones like Galaxy S7 or LG G5 either available or just around the corner.

    There also still is the price situation, IMHO the Priv has been priced too high at the beginning and the situation didn't get better, it got worse. Right now in Germany a Samsung Galaxy S7 costs almost 40 bucks less than a Priv. The S7 Edge is about 80 bucks more. The G5 hasn't been released yet, but you can already preorder it for less than a Priv. Don't even consider looking at deals for last year's phones like S6, G4, Z5 or the X Style - those offer considerably better deals than the Priv.
    BlackBerry hasn't adjusted the price, at least traditional consumers who got originally interested in the Priv might think twice now once they compare pricing.
    If you check out the Verizon Priv User Room forum you'll notice many of us got a $200 off promo for the PRIV, although some had to haggle with Verizon to get it. Others got $100 off or other goofy Verizon promos that ultimately upped their monthly bill by $5 or so when it would have otherwise been $30/month.

    So, I got my PRIV for $520, not $720.

    For what it worth, with only 56 reviews on Verizon 's website it has a near perfect 5 Star rating.

    Posted via CB PRIV.
    shoaib2811 and rickkel like this.
    04-01-16 10:17 AM
  25. Deckard79's Avatar
    If he *really* wants to get traction for the hardware business, he needs a better plan for future projects. IMHO the Priv could've done *much* better than it did. The negative aspects in terms of build quality could've been easily avoided if they wanted to. The press loved or at least liked the phone, major critical points always have been build quality and price. They could've priced it more agressively. Also they could have started better marketing.
    They could, they could, they could... but they didn't. Hardware won't save itself in a miracle way.
    I think the factors at play are:

    1) A lack of desire to turn around the hardware business, from which end product is a device like Priv

    2) A lack of remaining resources to turn around the hardware business, from which end product is a device like Priv

    Posted via the CrackBerry App for Android
    04-01-16 10:18 AM
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