[BB10user07]

If you take 20 BlackBerry users from any country...by any I mean any and ask them would you buy this new BB10 phone at a price point above or equal to latest iPhone or Samsung , I am sure 90% would have said NO....
That makes me believe T Heins and his equally in-experienced team did no testing on pricing at all ...None...Zero

And how could u completely miss exploding entry level market..considering the fact your leading market shares is in these economies..

Love BB10 but this is very frustrating to see..
What do you guys think?

Posted via CB10

[Bla1ze]

As much as I agree with you and think BlackBerry should be smarter about their pricing, it's like this.. You don't start at the bottom and go up. You start at the top tier pricing and go down. That's just how business profits work and at this point it's highly arguable that no matter price BlackBerry started at... if people don't want the product they're not gonna buy it anyway even if it's the 'lower priced' option.

Also, as interesting as the entry level argument is, there's not much profit to be made there when you're essentially giving away devices. For a company looking to make profit and yield some higher profit margins, the entry level market is not the spot to be. It's why they keep pushing BBOS devices, because well.. they pretty much have all the parts kicking around anyway and cost next to nothing to produce. It's all profit there.

But alas, it's at the point now where nobody wants a BBOS device either but that initial higher pricing on BB10 devices now means they can lower the price on them and push those as entry level, though I'm sure that's gonna be a tough play as well.

[David Murray1]

No. Thor said that he wanted 'big margins'. The end result was that the OS10 phones priced themselves out of the market. This resulted in a large scale writedown with the phones only now being sold for affordable prices. Had the phones been sold at or near these prices in the first place the margins would not be 'huge' but also potentially there would have been no need for a �1bn writedown.

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

BlackBerry saw themselves as a Premium Brand and taught that they could demand a premium just like Apple does. The problem is consumers don't see BlackBerry as a premium and the didn't see any justification to pay more... with BIS gone, BlackBerry for consumers is just like any other device - less the features and 3rd party support.

Unlike Bla1ze suggestion of starting at the top... Microsoft didn't release devices they tried to pawn off as top of the line or as flagship devices at premium prices. They knew they were going to have to work to build marketshare and that it would require very competitive pricing. I know some don't like MS and the way they do business, but they have relaunch their platform much more successfully than BB. Yes MS has more money and can afford to subside the phones.... but if that is what it take, that is what it takes!

The PlayBook should have been a hard earn lesson.

Should have been two Z10's at launch - a consumer model priced at cost to kick start the platform, and a enterprise model with BES capabilities at full price.

[Bla1ze]

Unlike Bla1ze suggestion of starting at the top... Microsoft didn't release devices they tried to pawn off as top of the line or as flagship devices at premium prices. They knew they were going to have to work to build marketshare and that it would require very competitive pricing. I know some don't like MS and the way they do business, but they have relaunch their platform much more successfully than BB. Yes MS has more money and can afford to subside the phones.... but if that is what it take, that is what it takes!

Yup. Realistically, Windows Phone could tank and MS wouldn't care one bit. They'd just keep pumping money into it as they've to their mobile offerings for years now lol. Just so happens this time around they've made a pretty decent product and it's taking off, though they certainly infused a lot of cash to help it along. Customer sentiment changed for BlackBerry and they can't pull off that 'Premium' brand look any more.

[BB10user07]

What BlackBerry did reminds me of JC Penny..
Right price is not what BlackBerry thinks is the right price, it is what your customer is willing to pay...

Posted via CB10

[ElGusta]

You would have thought BB learned their lesson from the playbook fiasco, initially pricing them in the iPad range. Guess not. lol.

Playbooks only began to move when they were placed in walmart discount bins (beside prepaid phones and discounted dvds for) $99 a unit.

[ihys]

It's not necessarily a given that you will make the most profit just because you price the device so expensive.
For example if BlackBerry priced it at 600 and only 3 ppl are willing to pay it at that price Bb sold 1800 dollars worth. Assuming it cost them 300 to make. That means they made 900 profit.

Now if they priced it at 500 let's say 5 ppl are willing to buy it now. That means 200x5 they would make 1000 profit.

Now let's take it one step further if they priced it at 400 now 9 ppl are willing to buy it. At a profit of 100 per device that's 900 profit.

If I could draw a graph for you its a supply demand profit maximization graph. If you can picture what I just said and draw it on the graph you can see there is a sweet spot for BlackBerry at 500 to maximize profit. But if BlackBerry was in the game to move more handsets to ppl then 400 would be a better choice at the cost of a little profit.

Now this is just an example I've taken and placed it in BlackBerry context. Obviously they shouldve done more research to actually see what the demand was. Seems like their market research was just done on the cb forums. So they thought demand was high with the rest of the consumers.

Apple on the other hand could place pretty much whatever price they want and can expect a good profits, sure they could lower the price a little and get a bigger profit as the example I've shown above.

I'm sure BlackBerry thought the price the placed on their device was gonna sell. But as you can see the market said otherwise. I'm looking at the z10 here.



Posted via CB10

[stlabrat]

9982 sure priced correctly.

Posted via CB10

[trsbbs]

Asking Lincoln prices for a Ford never works.



Verizon Z10 10.2.1.1055

[Troy Tiscareno]

You also need to remember that BB is the only company (besides Apple) who decided to try to do EVERYTHING on their own (phone hardware, OS, ecosystem, MDM), but they were also the smallest company and had virtually no other lines of business to help pay the massive costs of trying to build out and jump-start a whole new ecosystem.

MS, Apple, Google, Samsung, Sony, LG all have significant other lines of business, and more money in the bank, to rely on, and in the case of the Android manufacturers, they don't have the OS and ecosystem costs to worry about. BB knowingly took on massive risk and massive responsibility with (arguably) not enough resources to do the job right, and THEN did a terrible job of managing and executing on top of that.

The reason Thor wanted large margins is because the company invested a lot of money into BB10 development and production and NEEDED those margins. Unlike the BBOS system, BB10 largely come with no after-sales service revenue to sustain the company, so they HAD to make money off of the handsets - that's where their revenue stream essentially ended (earnings potential from BB World is minimal, given their limited offerings of content, all of it licensed). Plus you have to remember that BB10's hardware requirements, especially the 2GB of RAM, means they simply can't make inexpensive entry-level phones - look at the Q5's pricing as an example.

So:

• No other lines of business to bring in (significant) income.
• The need to pay for all costs of BB10 development, production, and marketing and still make a profit out of BB10 handset sales.
• The higher (than the competition) production cost of the handsets

all mean BB simply couldn't afford to price them at anything but premium prices and be seen as successful. They bet the company that they'd be well-received and everything would be fine. When it wasn't, they ended up with a $1B write-down, a huge drop in the stock price, and the attempted sale of the company.

[jdcfinisher]

I think most people on CB assumed that as soon as BB10 came out millions of people would upgrade and corporations and government would be placing big orders. And that would get BlackBerry moving up in popularity again. After multiple delays it came out with missing functions fewer big name apps than promised and welll publicized bugs . They didn't learn from PlayBook. If they came out with the Z30 and the ability to download android apps which is coming, a year ago they might have pulled it off. + actual marketing!! Premium price needs either a premium name or product to get the top price . Both is a gold mine.

Posted via CB10

[David Murray1]

You also need to remember that BB is the only company (besides Apple) who decided to try to do EVERYTHING on their own (phone hardware, OS, ecosystem, MDM), but they were also the smallest company and had virtually no other lines of business to help pay the massive costs of trying to build out and jump-start a whole new ecosystem.

MS, Apple, Google, Samsung, Sony, LG all have significant other lines of business, and more money in the bank, to rely on, and in the case of the Android manufacturers, they don't have the OS and ecosystem costs to worry about. BB knowingly took on massive risk and massive responsibility with (arguably) not enough resources to do the job right, and THEN did a terrible job of managing and executing on top of that.

The reason Thor wanted large margins is because the company invested a lot of money into BB10 development and production and NEEDED those margins. Unlike the BBOS system, BB10 largely come with no after-sales service revenue to sustain the company, so they HAD to make money off of the handsets - that's where their revenue stream essentially ended (earnings potential from BB World is minimal, given their limited offerings of content, all of it licensed). Plus you have to remember that BB10's hardware requirements, especially the 2GB of RAM, means they simply can't make inexpensive entry-level phones - look at the Q5's pricing as an example.

So:

No other lines of business to bring in (significant) income.
The need to pay for all costs of BB10 development, production, and marketing and still make a profit out of BB10 handset sales.
The higher (than the competition) production cost of the handsets

all mean BB simply couldn't afford to price them at anything but premium prices and be seen as successful. They bet the company that they'd be well-received and everything would be fine. When it wasn't, they ended up with a $1B write-down, a huge drop in the stock price, and the attempted sale of the company.

Well frankly as consumers we don't give two hoots what the company wants, the company needs to provide what we want. I know that OS10 was brand new and expensive. I also know that when it was originally released it was in a terrible shape and missing essential features. The early adopters of BB10 must have been crazy. Maybe Thor shouldn't have been so greedy to recoup his costs so early and to pace it over a longer time frame, especially considering he released a half-finished product.

[Bbnivende]

As much as I agree with you and think BlackBerry should be smarter about their pricing, it's like this.. You don't start at the bottom and go up. You start at the top tier pricing and go down. That's just how business profits work and at this point it's highly arguable that no matter price BlackBerry started at... if people don't want the product they're not gonna buy it anyway even if it's the 'lower priced' option.

Also, as interesting as the entry level argument is, there's not much profit to be made there when you're essentially giving away devices. For a company looking to make profit and yield some higher profit margins, the entry level market is not the spot to be. It's why they keep pushing BBOS devices, because well.. they pretty much have all the parts kicking around anyway and cost next to nothing to produce. It's all profit there.

But alas, it's at the point now where nobody wants a BBOS device either but that initial higher pricing on BB10 devices now means they can lower the price on them and push those as entry level, though I'm sure that's gonna be a tough play as well.

The world market needs a BB10 phone like the Lumia 520 or android equivalent. I read here of so many hardware software issues on the Z10 that it seems as if the Z10 is a dud. They need a cheap bug free all touch phone that has a big battery and the build quality of the nokia.

Maybe BB should do a Nexus and have another firm make their non Bold phones.


Sent from my Nexus 7 using CB Forums mobile app

[lnichols]

The world market needs a BB10 phone like the Lumia 520 or android equivalent. I read here of so many hardware software issues on the Z10 that it seems as if the Z10 is a dud. They need a cheap bug free all touch phone that has a big battery and the build quality of the nokia.

Maybe BB should do a Nexus and have another firm make their non Bold phones.


Sent from my Nexus 7 using CB Forums mobile app

I have had no issues with my Z10. Granted the US got 10.1 via T-Mobile almost immediately because we launched later, which fixed many of the early issues, but the phone itself has been excellent. That said the pricing was horrible. The phone isn't even at GS3 levels (similar, but GS3 can do Miracast where the Z10 can not), but the Z10 launched in the US about two to three weeks before the GS4 launched, and BlackBerry tried to charge GS4 pricing. BlackBerry would have moved more if they had priced it around $450 from the start. Instead they went $600, and waited till sales from us BlackBerry users that will buy whatever they sell had completely stalled before dropping the price.

Based on some of the statement in that Oral History of RIM, it is clear that Waterloo has a distortion field around it where inside BlackBerry is still a premium brand that demands premium pricing and is number 1, but outside we all know that the name BlackBerry on a phone is scoffed at and viewed as an app-less, locked down device that is only good at voice and e-mails. BB10 changed the capabilities, but unfortunately BlackBerry didn't think it was important to let people know this and instead expected early adopters to spread the word.