[mrsimon]

the price were right.
I gave a manager my Bold, which lasted till 2015, but since then I've bought Samsungs as company phones.
I don't want to spend more than 250€ for a mid-spec phone, because I have a very small company and budgets are tight.

So, if pitching at companies, a certain low price point must be important for purchasing officers. The LE or Motion at 250€ would've convinced me and perhaps bigger companies.

The Key2 seems like a business phone for certain self-employed professionals and individuals, not businesses.

Over to you.

[Troy Tiscareno]

BB was losing around $100 per phone sold with BB10, and not quite that much with BB Android. TCL is also losing money on every phone sold. And this is with their "inflated prices." There's simply no way to price them cheaper given the small volumes of production and the high licensing and development costs. BB Android isn't stock Android that Google provides for free - there are lots of changes that BB has to develop and maintain themselves, and TCL had to pay for as part of the licensing fees - so BB could never provide what it provides and compete on price, unless it was selling tens of millions of phones per year. But sales were only 330k last year and will only be about 100k this year - sales have been falling by 50% a year for the last 8 years.

[Chuck Finley69]

Plus a $50/$100 drop would represent a 30-50% drop in per device profit so you’d have to sell additional 1.5X-2X just to make the same volume gross profit margin and still losing money

[mrsimon]

Plus a $50/$100 drop would represent a 30-50% drop in per device profit so you’d have to sell additional 1.5X-2X just to make the same volume gross profit margin and still losing money

Hence, the business phone not for businesses.

[idssteve]

Depends on the business. Depends on how essential team coordination, client & vendor interaction, etc, etc performance is to your individual business... AND how your competitors' performance factors in. My grandkids' lemonade stand likely couldn't justify much expenditure on mobile tech. lol. Unless the competing lime-ade stand across the street leverages mobile tech to more proficiently satisfy their clientele. If customers tire of production delays while Sally's cycling to market for lemons, you'll risk losing customers to the competitor who leveraged mobile tech to "instacart" limes and keep production producing... lol. Especially if they can stir product with one hand while coordinating efforts via mobile in other hand...

Only you can assess acceptabilty of that risk for YOUR business.

[idssteve]

BB was losing around $100 per phone sold with BB10, and not quite that much with BB Android. TCL is also losing money on every phone sold. And this is with their "inflated prices." There's simply no way to price them cheaper given the small volumes of production and the high licensing and development costs. BB Android isn't stock Android that Google provides for free - there are lots of changes that BB has to develop and maintain themselves, and TCL had to pay for as part of the licensing fees - so BB could never provide what it provides and compete on price, unless it was selling tens of millions of phones per year. But sales were only 330k last year and will only be about 100k this year - sales have been falling by 50% a year for the last 8 years.

Troy, wasn't 2013 (BB10 catastrophe) about 6 years ago? Am I misinterpreting the chart you've posted elsewhere in perceiving the sales decline for 2012 as much less than 50%...?? My old eyes see a roughly 20% decline from about 50M 2011 peak to about 40M 2012... ? which was LESS than the INCREASE from 2010 to 2011... Pretty hard to see a precipitous "free fall" out of a one year (2011) spike...??? Yes, I get that Apple was growing THEIR market even faster. And I get that most of BBOS' later growth was in "developing markets" ... what ever that means. (A term some perceive as condescending at best.). Possibly a creative way of excusing NA market shed due to VZW's post "I can't write a check like that" Storm fiasco animosity? Lol.

Storm WAS a slab, btw. What percentage decline has BB's slabs suffered in those same periods?

All said, I totally concur with several of your conclusions, expressed here and elsewhere. BB10 represents tragically epic failure money pit. Small volume production must enjoy higher margin. That fact itself might derail market viability of potential niches. BlackBerry et al pays supposedly competent ppl to assess potential niche viability. That's THEIR job. MY job is to look after MY company's best interest. AND to advocate for that. Whether the grown adults at BlackBerry et al consider my free advocacy is up to THEM. lol.

[Troy Tiscareno]

Yes, 2012 was the one year they bucked the average drop - but they made up for it the following year and have maintained a steady 50% per year since then.

In any event, BB left the smartphone business in 2016, once they'd burned through their hardware/component commitments and transitioned to something they could license out (BB Android) as a package along with the name and the PKB patents. BB has no interest, and no financial ability, to get back into the smartphone business at the end of 2019.

And given that TCL won't even pay BB to service their past devices, and that they pulled the plug on the brand 10 months ago, I don't think they're worried about what anyone would or wouldn't do for the BB brand.

[Suzeranne]

The company phones we have left are Blackberry (the two of us who own the company are the only ones with company issued phones, a KeyOne and a Key2). Back before the direction of the business changed we had at least 10 company owned Blackberries and if we end up in a situation again where our employees require company issued phone they'd be Blackberries again. I am stubborn and loyal to my pkb.

[SteinwayTransitCorp]

BB was losing around $100 per phone sold with BB10, and not quite that much with BB Android. TCL is also losing money on every phone sold. And this is with their "inflated prices." There's simply no way to price them cheaper given the small volumes of production and the high licensing and development costs. BB Android isn't stock Android that Google provides for free - there are lots of changes that BB has to develop and maintain themselves, and TCL had to pay for as part of the licensing fees - so BB could never provide what it provides and compete on price, unless it was selling tens of millions of phones per year. But sales were only 330k last year and will only be about 100k this year - sales have been falling by 50% a year for the last 8 years.

no facts please....lol