[anon(10268214)]

Dumb logic, dumb analysis. That's too bad about TCL losing some ground in the US market but then again, those numbers don't tell the whole story. It's possible to sell less and become more profitable. Apple's market share is going down too and has been for years...and yet they are track to becoming the world's first trillion dollar company.

[A Noise Annoys]

I know some of you have blamed this on the source but from a personal perspective I can see this as being true. The fact that I've only ever seen the KEYone in a non-carrier store and only the once speaks volumes about how the carriers in Canada have taken the device so far. I have yet to see it in any carrier store that proclaims to carry it, and when I have ventured in to see it I've been told I have to order it on-line.

I suspect that the Motion will only be slightly better with carriers but who knows.

[stereojoe]

The article is written as an opinion and is completely anecdotal. I don't know anything about the author but, it seems, he is blindly hating on BlackBerry.

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

Another way to look at it.... in January TCL Communications as a company was worth $7 Billion HK..... last month they sold off 49% interest in the company, which at that time was in total valued at only $1 Billion HK. It's isn't just the US where TCL has run into problems with market-share and sales.

No way to know if BlackBerry Mobile is a positive for the company or not - as they took TCL Communications private last January due to it being in a nose dive (which clearly they still were by October). But it's clear TCL's financially problems have had a negative impact on BlackBerry Mobile's attempts at revitalizing the brand.

Thing is changes are coming with these new investors into the Company.... I doubt Steve Cistulli could safely say if he'll have a job in six months, much-less what the future for BlackBerry Mobile is.

[stlabrat]

hmm, interesting. licensing fee (assume K1 and motion will belong to that) increased from last year almost double... SAF still got 75 million this quarter...wow. (licensing, ip and others got 88 million for BB this quarter). Can't be that bad for the handsets world wide.

[FabriciusFab]

Without numbers, you can't make conclussions, but if they aren't selling well it's in big part because of the price.

[bb10adopter111]

Alcatel sales declined. BlackBerry sales started. Both volumes were low. There is no news here. Absolutely nobody expected the KEYone to sell millions of units at launch. It wasn't manufactured, distributed, or marketed to that kind of scale. If anything it was a mechanism for getting decent press and standing up the BlackBerry Mobile brand worldwide with distributors.

Mission accomplished. All indicators are that TCL is satisfied with the KEYONE, so much so that they launched an enhanced version and are moving forward with their BlackBerry strategy.

Now comes the heavy lifting -- scaling demand, production and distribution. Will they carve out a decent business with the BlackBerry brand? Time will tell, but it's unlikely that they will have a hit phone with consumers that CNET cares about in any case. Even a "huge" success for BlackBerry Mobile of 2-3 million handsets would be small potatoes compared to the major mobile brands' sales.

BlackBerry Mobile Can make hundreds of millions of dollars in profits without making a dent in Samsung or iPhone sales. It's a BIG market.

Posted with my trusty Z10

[LyoobaBerry]

Not sure about other markets, but lots of KEYᵒⁿᵉs have been sold in Serbia, being €555-750 (depends if independent or carrier's shops) quite surprising, but - when carriers get it, all units are sold out in few days' time

[pizzawheel]

Looks like a very North American perspective. That might become less and less relevant moving forward.

[silentbystander]

Alcatel sales declined. BlackBerry sales started. Both volumes were low. There is no news here. Absolutely nobody expected the KEYone to sell millions of units at launch. It wasn't manufactured, distributed, or marketed to that kind of scale. If anything it was a mechanism for getting decent press and standing up the BlackBerry Mobile brand worldwide with distributors.

Mission accomplished. All indicators are that TCL is satisfied with the KEYONE, so much so that they launched an enhanced version and are moving forward with their BlackBerry strategy.

Now comes the heavy lifting -- scaling demand, production and distribution. Will they carve out a decent business with the BlackBerry brand? Time will tell, but it's unlikely that they will have a hit phone with consumers that CNET cares about in any case. Even a "huge" success for BlackBerry Mobile of 2-3 million handsets would be small potatoes compared to the major mobile brands' sales.

BlackBerry Mobile Can make hundreds of millions of dollars in profits without making a debt in Samsung or iPhone sales. It's a BIG market.

Posted with my trusty Z10

Not entirely true. Is it not relevant that the company that ponied up the cash to license the Blackberry name and carry on its legacy has lost enough North American market share to drop out of the top 5 mobile manufacturers? That could be construed as an indicator of poor product cycling and lack of innovation from the company driving the Blackberry bus.

[zer0ten]

Overpriced, confusing launch, inability of consumers to buy the device even when they are actively seeking it out and lots of hardware issues. Who is actually surprised it isn't selling well?

[bb10adopter111]

Not entirely true. Is it not relevant that the company that ponied up the cash to license the Blackberry name and carry on its legacy has lost enough North American market share to drop out of the top 5 mobile manufacturers? That could be construed as an indicator of poor product cycling and lack of innovation from the company driving the Blackberry bus.

Possibly, but this could also be a trailing indicator of the challenges TCL face in their focus on the consumer market with the Alcatel brand. Typically, companies know their trends and forecasts long before they make it into the press. It's consistent with this report that TCL understood the importance of targeting a different sector and that they licensed the BlackBerry brand in response to their experience with Alcatel.

Posted with my trusty Z10

[dflyer]

Its all hearsay and until they release info it is what it is. If they did have good sales you would think they would want to share that information as to help hype things up. Sometimes lack of info says enough of what you need to know. Personally, from the outside looking in, I think they have been ok... for what its worth i tried to order a Black Edition K1 from my Bell carrier in Van. and they were not able to confirm when it would be in. Something like December I was told, no grantees. I inquired about the silver K1 and wanted latest possible build date available on that one and they said I would most likely be getting in the early made ones as thats what they had in stock still, the first run devices with the issues. So I didnt bother with it.

[TheGraduate]

TCL is doing much better with the BlackBerry brand than they ever did with their own brand devices, obscure android slabs that never gained mainstream traction... Lenovo has owned Motorola for almost 4 years now and they have finally made it into the first 5... the TCL/BB project will take time, TCL certainly has the resources to prevail and is here to stay.

[Fernando Martin]

I've said this before and I'll say it again : The name BlackBerry is toxic in the USA. It's not going to sell there. TCL is almost wasting their time, money and effort to get any traction there.

I don't see the logic in that. What they need to do is simple, and that is, make a product that people want to buy. They appear to be turning things around. I am personally glad that BB is not getting out of the phone market, and I still believe their android phones are the best productivity tools out there. I intend to buy one. I am personally done with iPhones.

[app_Developer]

Looks like a very North American perspective. That might become less and less relevant moving forward.

It was even more narrow than that. It is a US perspective. It was US marketshare that we was writing about.

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

TCL is doing much better with the BlackBerry brand than they ever did with their own brand devices, obscure android slabs that never gained mainstream traction... Lenovo has owned Motorola for almost 4 years now and they have finally made it into the first 5... the TCL/BB project will take time, TCL certainly has the resources to prevail and is here to stay.

What resources do you think TCL Communications has? They are broke and had to sell off 49% of their company for abut 15% of what it was worth just last year. That is the reason for drawn out launches, no marketing and poor hardware value.


Sad thing is what HDM has been able to do with the Nokia name in about the same period of time. Five smartphone devices, monthly security patches, already beta testing Oreo, promised "P" for all current devices. Granted they are probable just as hard to find in some markets like the US as a BlackBerry's are. But HDM doesn't seem to have the same problems with production or taking as long to launch products as TCL does. And they have sold about 4 Million smartphones and almost as many of their new "dumb" phones. Nokia 8 was an impressive device at a value price. Then soon to come Nokia 9 is expect to put Nokia back in the flagship battle.

Don't think TCL has access to high end processors at this point.

[anon(10268214)]

What resources do you think TCL Communications has? They are broke and had to sell off 49% of their company for abut 15% of what it was worth just last year. That is the reason for drawn out launches, no marketing and poor hardware value.


Sad thing is what HDM has been able to do with the Nokia name in about the same period of time. Five smartphone devices, monthly security patches, already beta testing Oreo, promised "P" for all current devices. Granted they are probable just as hard to find in some markets like the US as a BlackBerry's are. But HDM doesn't seem to have the same problems with production or taking as long to launch products as TCL does. And they have sold about 4 Million smartphones and almost as many of their new "dumb" phones. Nokia 8 was an impressive device at a value price. Then soon to come Nokia 9 is expect to put Nokia back in the flagship battle.

Don't think TCL has access to high end processors at this point.

Unsubstantiated BS. Sounds like someone got a really good deal on TCL shares. And of course, what no one is considering here is obviously some cash was needed up front to ramp up BBMo in the first place.

If you think TCL Communications is broke, take a look at Motorola's balance sheet. They climbed back up to #5 , surpassing TCL, at the expense of a few billion in liabilities, and still in the red. As they have been for the past five years. And what does Lenovo have to back them up should they falter? Laptops and PC's. There's a high growth market. Lol.

[Carjackd]

This is US only, right?

It would be very interesting to know how it is selling worldwide, but we may never know

It's going to take a long time to bring the name back to the US. America has a way of making people and companies into super stars and gets great enjoyment of tearing them apart. The BlackBerry name has still a strong following in Canada, Europe, Asia and the middle east. A lot of loyal consumers.

But it would be interesting to see the numbers.

[Carjackd]

I've said this before and I'll say it again : The name BlackBerry is toxic in the USA. It's not going to sell there. TCL is almost wasting their time, money and effort to get any traction there.

Hmmmm....i should have just read down a couple more posts. This ^

[Carjackd]

At this stage, this early in the game, I really fail to see the purpose of this article. It's not telling of anything. No trend, nothing. I can't even classify it as relevant news as TCL in general isn't particularly important in the US market at the moment.

I had someone from BlackBerry Mobile say almost those exact words to me last evening at the Canadian Release Party

[Byrese]

I don't know if it's too early, but I do see merit in the argument that this is probably only the US market and the whole Android/TCL/BB confusion. There are so many popular non US phones...anything that is non iPhone or even Samsung right now, gets hate.

[app_Developer]

It's going to take a long time to bring the name back to the US. America has a way of making people and companies into super stars and gets great enjoyment of tearing them apart. The BlackBerry name has still a strong following in Canada, Europe, Asia and the middle east. A lot of loyal consumers.

But it would be interesting to see the numbers.

I don’t know about europe. BB sales have been near zero there for years.

I get the sense that if you counted people on CB, 4/5 or more of the people left here now are Canadian. That I understand because of patriotic affinity. But in the bigger picture, Canada is still a small country.

And Indonesia might still be in play. But that’s just 1 country in Asia.

[evodevo69]

SMH at the "test run" arguments...

It's hilarious listening to everyone come up with theory after theory since 2013 to explain the failure of the blackberry branded handsets.

It's honestly become quite a show on CB loll

[bb10adopter111]

I don’t know about europe. BB sales have been near zero there for years.

I get the sense that if you counted people on CB, 4/5 or more of the people left here now are Canadian. That I understand because of patriotic affinity. But in the bigger picture, Canada is still a small country.

And Indonesia might still be in play. But that’s just 1 country in Asia.

Quite a few of us are US. The turnout for the CBK KEYone Meetups in the US were well-attended. It's a small percentage of the market in the US, but a large percentage of CB posters.

Posted with my trusty Z10