BB needs to adjust the phone price before it is too late

Obviously Q5 will not sell good at $400 - $500.

Blackberry should cut the price of this phone aggressively to push the sales, even with small
profit margin. BB10 are nice phones. The only thing prevents them to sell is the price and
the Apps. Marketing won't help if the price is not set right in the market. When you have the
right produce at right price, products will sell by products.

BB needs gain the market share by selling more phones. This will bring the apps to the platform
and more phones will be sold because of the apps.

BBM cross platform will not save the company. Large phone companies will develop their own
message apps finally, imessaging, wechat, etc. Same to BES. BES will have a bright future only
when it manages the company's own phones - blackberries.

One problem: the hardware costs nearly that.
Their other alternative is to make a lower spec phone and have app problems again, and create massive fragmentation like in BBOS that makes devs shy away.

Or have apps be scaleable, not sure why they didn't just do that.

Originally Posted by BBmagic

Blackberry should cut the price of this phone aggressively to push the sales, even with small
profit margin.

Once price becomes a feature, then the product becomes a commodity. Low pricing kills the brand equity.

In Germany, the Q5 prices are already droping like they did with the first two BB10 devices. The Q5 is available since almost a week and started out at around 400EUR. Right now prices are just below 350EUR and I expect them to hit roughly 300EUR till end of this month.
Yes, initially the Q5 is overpriced, especially since it was announced as a Curve like "budget" phone. However for a budget phone it is priced way too high, you can get upper mid-range devices for 300 to 400EUR. Nokia has real budget devices, ranging between 150 and 200EUR, just like BBRYs OS7 Curves, which also are real budget phones. The Q5 however is not :(

Posted via the awesome Blackberry Q10

Originally Posted by SCrid2000

One problem: the hardware costs nearly that.
Their other alternative is to make a lower spec phone and have app problems again, and create massive fragmentation like in BBOS that makes devs shy away.

Or have apps be scaleable, not sure why they didn't just do that.

Even with scaleable apps, that doesn't always fix the screen size problem (going up or down) sadly. (I'm no developer, but from end user perspective I have seen devices that lack app compatibility even though the OS scaled)

I agreed reducing price may bring negative impact the brand. However, when all branded companies reduce the price of their phones to gain the market share you have no choice but following.

Blackberry has lived in its own dream too long. It tended to overlook its competitors and customers' needs.

I think it's fine selling at $400 for a short term. There are enthusiasts that will buy it at that price. After that it can drop to $350 then $300.

Production costs become cheaper over time as well.

I bought my z10 in February. I paid the $199, I paid another $350 to end my previous contract and I got myself in another contract! Honestly, i'd pay $1000 for this phone with no hesitation. On second thought I probably did!

It's awesome that people can get the z10 for $49 now. Not a high price to type better, to multitask better, to flow better, to browse better..


Posted via CB10

they don't need to. the market already adjust the price for them...

Originally Posted by BBmagic

I agreed reducing price may bring negative impact the brand. However, when all branded companies reduce the price of their phones to gain the market share you have no choice but following.

Outside of dropping the price of the original, unsubsidized $600 price in 2007 to a subsidized $400 in 2008, Apple has never dropped the price of its latest phone till the next version is released.

SMART phone does not like consumer products, price strategies (cutting the price to sell more units) only work when the phone is still hot. When the price is adjusted by the market it is already too late.

Apple did not have strong competitor back to 2008. Today is totally different - new and nice phones are coming out every month, even Apple is not able to repeat the same story again.

In order to survive in today’s environment, Blackberry has to be more proactive. Although BB10 sold well in Canada, it is time to run rebate programs to keep old customers and cut the price to bring new customers in.