Sculley's new phones less than the sale price of a Blackberry. Are they as good or is it just hype?
Sculley's new smartphone | Watch the video - Yahoo Finance
Sculley's new phones less than the sale price of a Blackberry. Are they as good or is it just hype?
Sculley's new smartphone | Watch the video - Yahoo Finance
There is a company that already does this, used to be small, now its a giant called Xiaomi and they are killing Samsung in Asia.
My question is, how are these companies able to sell phones at such low prices with high-end specs? Is it because they use Android and not having to develop their own OS allows them to lower the cost of the phones that much? What costs the most in terms of phone hardware? Is it the display? I would love for BlackBerry to figure this cost structure out and offer some lower priced phones with some of these high specs.
Say what now? MediaTek processors and 3G only radios?
These are no different from any number of cheap asian mobiles that turn up on deal sites every day of the week...
See foe example
http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/meiz...m-16gb-2273693
He does talk about being asked to buy BlackBerry at some point.... Maybe while he was with Apple? Seems like it must have been back a few years.
This isn't exactly a cutting edge phone... and neither has he proven that he can in fact make money doing this. He is a typical CEO... he talks a good game.Obi originally started in India, selling low-cost Chinese devices to Indian consumers. It didn�t work out, so the company scrapped sales earlier this year. Now, it�s looking to emerging markets like Asia, Africa, and the Middle East for the near future.
The Obi Worldphone SF1 is the flagship, with a 5-inch full HD (1,920 x 1,080 pixel) display and blocky design that reminds us of the Nokia Lumia 1020. Internally, the SF1 runs on Qualcomm�s Snapdragon 615 processor and a 3,000mAh battery. Obi Worldphone offers two storage options, 32GB with 3GB of RAM or 16GB with 2GB of RAM � both come with a MicroSD card for 64GB expansion.
The SF1 will support 4G LTE and dual-SIM, but there is no Wi-Fi ac or USB Type-C on the smartphone. On the back sits a 13-megapixel camera, and on the front there�s a 5-megapixel camera. Obi Worldphone will sell the SF1 at $200 for 16GB or $250 for 32GB.
But he does have the advantage of starting small and growing. Where as BlackBerry was a multi-billion dollar company with a lot of overhead - that Chen has trimmed. Might have been better to pull out of a few markets.....
They can only make a profit by selling volume, again and again. They are probably also assuming that people will hold on to the phone less than two years, so there will be a lot of turnover. This is not really a new strategy. The market will be flooded with cheaper and cheaper phones.
Posted via CB10
They are launching these in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. I'm not sure that $200 phone with these specs.... are going to be cheap enough in these markets.
But sadly that is the game that Android OEM's must play.... how low can I go, how low can I go..... All the while Google is getting the eyeballs that they want.
Which is the problem that I think BlackBerry is going to have... Different markets require different devices and price points. Don't think a $700 Slider that might sell ok in the US, will have the same success in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Even Samsung changes up their line up in these markets.
I haven't researched his phones but in the interview he specifically mentioned 4G LTE phones and getting hardware from Qualcomm and Sony. He claims his company is not making any compromises on technology. Was that all BS? Are his cheap phones just that - cheap phones in every sense?
Beats me I just looked at the spec on their own website
Sent from my LG-D802 using Tapatalk
We will see as to his success but in the markets the phone is targeting neither wifi or USB-C are likely prevalent enough. From what I understand, big batteries and pricing are strengths and Sculley has those.
Agreed, big advantage. Big companies have tremendous inertia - size, overhead, entrenched corporate culture - that small companies don't tend to face.But he does have the advantage of starting small and growing. Where as BlackBerry was a multi-billion dollar company with a lot of overhead - that Chen has trimmed. Might have been better to pull out of a few markets.....
I'm not so sure Sculley has the pricing covered..... I agree that his hardware mix along with dual sims should work nicely in the markets he is targeting. But the competition are the low end is nothing but cut throat, and only works based on volume. I just don't see an advantage with his phones over the 20 other low end vendors selling $100 - $200 Android phones there.
Same reason I saw even less of an opportunity for BlackBerry with the Z3 or ANY of their products.
I think it would be VERY interesting to see where those last 800K BB10 phones where sold. As I said I think BlackBerry might need to pull back from some of their traditional markets....
I hope he has something else to offer. Both Xiaomi and Huawei sell a crap load of peripherals and accessories as well, I believe, and if rumor is to be believed are venturing into laptops. Margins are too thin to rely on phones alone.
Those BB10 sales numbers are really not good. I doubt they can actually show any sort of stronghold remaining. OTOH they likely don't reflect any fleet numbers. It would be interesting to see if there is any sort of cyclical spiking in the sales to show BBRY has some sort of repeat business they can batten on to until SaaS takes off.
One of Sculleys comments was that he could do with a sales force of 700 what Blackberry needed 7000 sales people to do. I cannot believe that BB is that inept. BB has a back to school sale on a lot of phones and I am hearing more and more people talking about BB phones. Love the 10.3 experience hope the latest sales will start BB 10 in the right direction.
Scully is going to avoid B&M where the sales cost is high and sell primarily online. Like I said before Xiaomi has already adapted a low-cost sales strategy which is essential to survive is a low margin market tier.
Xiaomi is on track to sell 80M phones this year and is now has an estimated employee count of 8K whereas BB is around 6k now after all the cuts. But their marketing/sales is totally different with almost of all them being sold online or thru online partners. Scully it trying to head Xiaomi off the pass before they enter the NA/Euro market but I think he is a year too late.
Pay 1000 engineers in Canada vs China.
Also, when you build close to where you develop, it's way easier to ramp up and down.
Posted via CB10
BlackBerry has sales people?
Posted via Z30