[anon(5956773)]

After a few more years, do you guys still see BlackBerry legacy devices around?

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

No way to know for sure....

But most likely they do, based on how high service fee still are.

BBOS had features (BIS) that make it valuable in many still developing markets.

[anon(9721108)]

No service fees in Canada for my BIS but who would have thought we would be able to still use them after 5.5 years. Sure some apps are tripping up but for most functions they are just fine. There are fixes and ways around things to keep them working. Considering that BBOS had 10 years of development, thats a long history and a lot of people that have immersed themselves into this OS that KNOW how to work around things that start to fail and we have kept them running.

The question might be, how many people love BB10 will commit to the next 5 years and how many think they will be still using them then? Who knows.

When I got this 9900 a year ago the numbers floating around in here were something like 12 million Legacy users to 10 million "all other Blackberry devices currently in use." No idea the source of those numbers BUT I never saw anyone refuting them in here either. Anyone know where that came from?

I would go out on a limb and say that the numbers of users for BBOS and BB10 COULD be depleting at the same rate. But as for knowing NOW what is more in use globally, who knows.

Where and how can we find out?

-sent from a beautiful Bold 9900

[stlabrat]

saf still sizable based on the quarterly earning, look like a lot of OS7 around... (if $5.00 per month per device, 3 month per quarter, you might be able to figure out how many rough order of magnitude estimation).

[curves2000]

No service fees in Canada for my BIS but who would have thought we would be able to still use them after 5.5 years. Sure some apps are tripping up but for most functions they are just fine. There are fixes and ways around things to keep them working. Considering that BBOS had 10 years of development, thats a long history and a lot of people that have immersed themselves into this OS that KNOW how to work around things that start to fail and we have kept them running.

The question might be, how many people love BB10 will commit to the next 5 years and how many think they will be still using them then? Who knows.

When I got this 9900 a year ago the numbers floating around in here were something like 12 million Legacy users to 10 million "all other Blackberry devices currently in use." No idea the source of those numbers BUT I never saw anyone refuting them in here either. Anyone know where that came from?

I would go out on a limb and say that the numbers of users for BBOS and BB10 COULD be depleting at the same rate. But as for knowing NOW what is more in use globally, who knows.

Where and how can we find out?

-sent from a beautiful Bold 9900

I believe on the recent earnings report under the "management analysis and discussion" there was a figure of an approximate smartphone base of 8 million users. This should include all users of BlackBerry devices.

When John Chen took over, it was probably closer to 45 million. It's nuts how quickly the bottom has come out.

Posted via CB10

[conite]

After a few more years, do you guys still see BlackBerry legacy devices around?

From the last quarter:

"As at the end of the third quarter of fiscal 2017, the Company had a smartphone user base of approximately 16 million."

How many of these devices are secondary devices (I have many), is unknown. I would guess at least half.

The loss rate on BBOS devices had them targeting 0 left by March of last year - but it probably levelled off to some long term minimum of corporate and government users.

[anon(9721108)]

I believe on the recent earnings report under the "management analysis and discussion" there was a figure of an approximate smartphone base of 8 million users. This should include all users of BlackBerry devices.

When John Chen took over, it was probably closer to 45 million. It's nuts how quickly the bottom has come out.

Posted via CB10

8 million globally for ALL Blackberry devices?? Whoa, what a difference a year makes ugg

-sent from a beautiful Bold 9900

[anon(9721108)]

From the last quarter:

"As at the end of the third quarter of fiscal 2017, the Company had a.

2016?

I would say 16 million is the number I want to believe, that would seem more realistic.

I wonder if they go by current activations for those stats? (I mean, they wouldn't count how many we keep in our sock drawers)

-sent from a beautiful Bold 9900

[howarmat]

16 seems inline with previous decay rates. So it would be close as there were maybe 13-14 million total bb10 devices sold

[conite]

2016?

I would say 16 million is the number I want to believe, that would seem more realistic.

I wonder if they go by current activations for those stats? (I mean, they wouldn't count how many we keep in our sock drawers)
-sent from a beautiful Bold 9900

Nope. 2017. That's how they report it.

They probably measure how many unique devices are used in a month. That's why I think about half of those devices are secondary devices.

[curves2000]

I must apologize and confirm that the 8 million figure I gave earlier was wrong. I just looked up the report again and I really don't know where I pulled that number from. Sorry about that.

16 million is the correct number but even that is really low. Considering how popular Android is the Android offerings from BlackBerry have not even stabilized the figures. Goes to show you how big of a failure a lot of these were.

On the question and answer session of the conversation there was a question asked about the SAF revenue and why there was an acceleration of it falling quicker than anticipated.

John Chen mentioned it was because there was a "perception we don't sell phones anymore"

I wonder what gave them that idea??? I understand that is going on with the TCL and other agreements but the way this was communicated to the market, customers and the media was awful. They need to do a much better job

Posted via CB10

[anon(9721108)]

Yeh it is quite a loss. It means those leaving Blackberries aren't returning to them, even on Android, as you say.

I wonder if anyone has looked into if it is more difficult for a Canadian company to advertise on American networks. I mean, a Blackberry commercial would be washed away in a sea of American products. It would also cost a lot more based on the dollar differences, etc. Just something to think about...Everyone says Blackberry has the worst "Marketing" but maybe there is more to that story.

[curves2000]

Yeh it is quite a loss. It means those leaving Blackberries aren't returning to them, even on Android, as you say.

I wonder if anyone has looked into if it is more difficult for a Canadian company to advertise on American networks. I mean, a Blackberry commercial would be washed away in a sea of American products. It would also cost a lot more based on the dollar differences, etc. Just something to think about...Everyone says Blackberry has the worst "Marketing" but maybe there is more to that story.

BlackBerry was never really good with marketing and for the longest time depended on carriers to market.

When they were top of their game you would have large carriers like Verizon ,ATT etc placing orders for hundreds of thousands of devices a quarter. Pushing those phones hard, using their own marketing budgets fueled BlackBerry sales as well?

BlackBerry reports their figures in US dollars and then adjusts them for either a positive or negative effect depending on what the currency is doing quarterly.

The last few years BlackBerry really didn't have the financial to market heavy, especially in traditional senses such as tv advertising. If you look at Apple, they are literally spending tens of millions of dollars daily on tv ads during major events such as NFL, NHL, NBA etc. BlackBerry just doesn't have even a fraction of the muscle and the fact that they were losing money on hardware shows that they weren't going to throw good money after bad when the division was on life support.

The new arrangement with TCL should allow a larger marketing budget and a chance for TCL to make a bigger name for themselves in North America and with enterprise clients too

Posted via CB10

[stlabrat]

look like 16 million is the estimated number, even according to the harsh critic of BGR. (look like he like mercury - "iphone like" ID... ha. iphone NOT like ID i would say).
Here’s the BlackBerry Mercury, the QWERTY Android phone of your dreams (or nightmares) – BGR

[Loc22]

I believe on the recent earnings report under the "management analysis and discussion" there was a figure of an approximate smartphone base of 8 million users. This should include all users of BlackBerry devices.

When John Chen took over, it was probably closer to 45 million. It's nuts how quickly the bottom has come out.

Posted via CB10

Don't forget that many countries have already stop providing BIS hence these numbers will drop drastically. Firstly most functions on the legacy device will no longer work and these phones will not be accounted for as a phone in use by BlackBerry.

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

There are reasons I can see BBOS numbers declining pretty fast....

But there are reasons I can see BB10 numbers declining just as fast too....

I wonder what they do count.... my PlayBook still gets used by my granddaughter on a pretty regular basis (great video player). And my Z10 is still powered up and connected via Wi-Fi to BlackBerry network.

[Troy Tiscareno]

I wonder what they do count.... my PlayBook still gets used by my granddaughter on a pretty regular basis (great video player). And my Z10 is still powered up and connected via Wi-Fi to BlackBerry network.

The industry standard is to "count" every unique device that has "phoned home" (in this case, connected to BB services, which BB phones do whenever they're turned on and have network access) in the last month. That means devices used only on WiFi count, but devices that sit in a drawer turned off don't count. Playbooks wouldn't be included in this number as it is phone-specific.

[svelt]

They sold 2.5 million PlayBooks, and it's now almost 6 years old. Blind guess, but I'd estimate well under half, if not less than a quarter of them are even turned on periodically anymore.

[Slash82]

I don't think so.
But right now it does not matter if you use OS7 or OS10.
Both have the same future and amount of developers! LOL.

Posted via CB10

[sorinv]

They sold 2.5 million PlayBooks, and it's now almost 6 years old. Blind guess, but I'd estimate well under half, if not less than a quarter of them are even turned on periodically anymore.

I keep mine on all the time. It's a great multimedia device for watching live TV, music, and reading books.
And it still works fine, even the browser, even though it hasn't been supported for two years now.

Posted via CB10

[Bbnivende]

They sold 2.5 million PlayBooks, and it's now almost 6 years old. Blind guess, but I'd estimate well under half, if not less than a quarter of them are even turned on periodically anymore.

My guesstimate would be 10 percent or less.

I also think that most of the BBOS devices still in use would be in India, Nigeria, Indonesia South Africa with a smattering in Canada and the UK. Not sure of the split ... pretty even I think.

My Z10 is still in use as a WIFI device. My 9900 was given away as I no longer had a BIS account.

[ohaiguise]

BBOS forever.

[idssteve]

My guesstimate would be 10 percent or less.

I also think that most of the BBOS devices still in use would be in India, Nigeria, Indonesia South Africa with a smattering in Canada and the UK. Not sure of the split ... pretty even I think.

My Z10 is still in use as a WIFI device. My 9900 was given away as I no longer had a BIS account.

Gotta wifi 9900 bridged to a Playbook that's hdmi into tv at home, in living room. Always wished Z/Q10 could bridge to 9900 like PB does. 99's trackpad affords wonderful precision on both tiny and giant screens. BIS, or no. Fwiw.

Question: Why do you think disproportionate numbers of folks in India, Nigeria, Indonesia, South Africa, etc are still paying monthly BIS fees?

[Bbnivende]

Steve the answer is that a disproportionate number of BBOS devices were used in these markets in 2012 and onwards. Indonesia and Nigeria particularly. The drop in support for BBOS will lag compared to North America. Later to get in and later to get out. Economics and the relative lack of public WIFI plays a role too. Maybe the use of BlackBerry OS devices in these markets will completely drop off this year.

[PacmanUK1]

I still use my bold 9790.. reason? Well instead of paying a stupid amount of money for data I just pay £5 for BIS and it's truly unlimited data.. WiFi Hotspot and connect my Q10 to it and bam!

I've had calls from T-Mobile saying I've used 20GB of data and I would be more suited to pay £15 a month for a tablet and 25GB of data.. Why would I pay more than £5 a month like I do now on pay as you go! Aha

Posted via CB10