I don't mind that subscriber numbers won't be reported

First off, congrats shorts on a successful day. You were right, the longs were wrong. Bumpy roads still remain.

A piece of news that surprised me at first, was that BlackBerry is going to no longer announce 'active subscribers". At first, I thought, why would they do that? Then I realized - it's used against them and their competitors don't use that metric so it's a double whammy.

Even a few minutes ago, Michael Hainsworth on CTV (a well known Apple fanboy) used this metric incorrectly, announcing live that they 'lost 6 million subscribers' on air. The number went from 76 to 72 million, so the bad news was made worse when Michael told the story.

Who of BlackBerry's competitors announces the number of people actively using their product? Apple announces "iOS devices ever shipped" and journalists and fans often mistake this as "actively in use" but it's silly. As an example, my best friend's wife as an iPhone ... her second or third (I can't remember which). One of them died and I think the other was left in a drawer when upgraded. One user, three devices. She also has two iPads ... one was dropped and destroyed, the other is in use. Two more devices, same user.

Can anyone tell me how many iPhones are in use right now in the world?

Microsoft gives random nuggets about having the fastest growth rate in the industry. Again, easy to achieve when going from a very small base than starting from a very big base. But whenever I ask Windows Phone fans who crow about being "number 3" how many Windows Phones are actively being used right now and show my estimation of it being about 20 million, they go silent.

Google announces "Activations". Same logic as Apple - if you go from a cheap Huwei phone to an LG then an S4, you're one user who has activated three times.

BlackBerry is the only one I can tell who announces their active user base every quarter. And when it drops, they get hammered for it.

Originally Posted by RubberChicken76

A piece of news that surprised me at first, was that BlackBerry is going to no longer announce 'active subscribers". At first, I thought, why would they do that? Then I realized - it's used against them and their competitors don't use that metric so it's a double whammy.

RIM announced it was not going to use this metric in September 2010. RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie explained,

Net subscriber account additions are increasingly difficult to forecast as the smartphone market becomes mainstream with more channel complexity, growth in the number of competitive products and increased market segmentation."

Why is this still an issue? Oh, because 80 million users became a positive.

Originally Posted by sosumi11

RIM announced it was not going to use this metric in September 2010. RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie explained,



Why is this still an issue? Oh, because 80 million users became a positive.

There's two different metrics they used to give.

One was "net new subscribers", which you reference. The second was "active subscribers" which was addressed today

Originally Posted by RubberChicken76

There's two different metrics they used to give.
One was "net new subscribers", which you reference. The second was "active subscribers" which was addressed today

RIM stopped using the "subscriber metric" in all forms in 2010, except for milestones. The only reason they brought it back was to promote the installed user base of the BlackBerry.

If RIM was only reporting active subscribers as you suggest, it is a simple calculation to subtract current quarter's number of "active subscribers" with previous quarter's number to get the "net new subscribers."

Once the body is dead why keep checking the pulse? That's why numbers don't matter anymore

Posted via CB10

Originally Posted by sosumi11

RIM stopped using the "subscriber metric" in all forms in 2010, except for milestones. The only reason they brought it back was to promote the installed user base of the BlackBerry.

EDIT: This is tricky after all. You're right.

Where it gets tricky is:

- They used to call out: the total subscriber base and the number of people who were 'net new' to BlackBerry in general
- Then they briefly stopped
- Then they resumed talking about subscribers only ... even when it began to drop
- Now they aren't talking

They will announce them again once/if they begin to grow.

Originally Posted by z10fido

Once the body is dead why keep checking the pulse? That's why numbers don't matter anymore

Posted via CB10

Can you just leave the forum and throw your bb10 device out the window? Thanks.

Sent from my BB10 smartphone.

Originally Posted by z10fido

Once the body is dead why keep checking the pulse? That's why numbers don't matter anymore

Posted via CB10

That was a clever and helpful response. Thank you for that insightful post.

With BB10, you no longer need a carrier-based BIS plan for data to go through BB's NOC. That was the case with all legacy BBs. In the days before 3G, data speeds were horrible and having data go through the NOC offered compression resulting in higher transfer speeds and lower data usage. Now, a BB10 device works largely in the same way as other smartphones, i.e. you don't have to have your data going through BB servers if you don't need to.

Over time, this would lead to a reduction in subscriber numbers anyway because BB wouldn't know how many phones were in use if the data wasn't going through their servers. That's why they're not announcing them anymore. Well, that and the fact that the "80 million subs, $2.x billion cash, no debt" slogan isn't really helping them anymore.