They sold 1M z10 in the first MONTH.
They sold 10M in the first year, year and a half.
Please do not rearrange the numbers.
Read the IDC report.
The z10 returns in the first month were because people refused to learn gestures. They were a radical change from BB0S or IoS.
The 1M in the first month accounted for the returns.
People who use an IPhone, like my daughter, or some electronics graduate students I know who who use iphones, have a hard time with the bb10 gestures. They hate bB10 gestures, just like I hate the iPhone interface.
I find it not user friendly having to push a button.
But eventually all the Z10 were sold, only temporarily written down.
The Board just needed an excuse to change plans and decided to kill BB10 only 7-8 months after its launch, not allowing it to take off. That was short sighted and arguably irresponsible because BlackBerry today is insignificant even in the Canadian high tech landscape.
From a flagship of Canadian industry, a symbol of Canada around the world, it has become an app shop for Google.
There was nothing wrong with BB10.0. I had a z10 from launch, a Z30 by November 2013, and a Passport by October 2014.
I still think the Z10 is the best looking BB10 phone. The only one that looked as polished on the outside as an Iphone. That's the only thing I appreciate about Apple products: exterior looks).
The only problem with z10 was its battery.
All updates to bb.10 were incremental, not fundamental.
The layoffs are not an excuse for the greatly diminished revenues and the dramatic reduction in phone sales and users under Chen.
Those are undeniable and due to him and the board alone.
They inherited over 3B in cash when Chen took over.
The cuts and layoffs were part and parcel of the change to software strategy. They are used to praise Chen and BlackBerry, but the 700000 phones in the last quarter would have been considered catastrophic even a year ago.
Let's not rewrite history.
Yes, BlackBerry is praised now for becoming a software company because analysts and investors have a different interest and agenda than BlackBerry phone users.
Some of that software revenue was acquired with cash. It's not due to inside development under Chen's leadership. He can continue to buy revenue in the next quarter to meet his software sales goals, if need be, with that cash.
Chen repeated yesterday in the Globe and Mail that hardware may discontinue after March. He is not confident that he can turn a profit on hardware with android.
BlackBerry's focus on software starting to pay off: CEO - The Globe and Mail
This invalidates the decision to go android as a saviour.
The goal of 5M phones per year was and still is easily achievable just with BB10 phones, especially if the app developing resources are redirected to BB10 apps from writing apps for android and Google.
There was no reason to leave the impression that BB10 was on its way out, even if an android phone was introduced.
Chen has been shooting BlackBerry in the foot repeatedly in the second half of 2015 in almost all his public appearances, casting shadows on its ability to provide privacy, robustness of its encryption (or at least if BlackBerry gives the keys to governments) its viability as a hardware company, and discouraging even its existing users to stay on as BlackBerry customers.
The phone sales numbers prove that more so then any revenue results.
Posted via CB10