[notfanboy]

BBRY reports earnings a month from now. I'm very curious to hear what everyone thinks has been happening to the subscriber base. Subscribers reached a peak of 80 million in September of last year. It has been declining since. Now we will have the first full quarter of Z10 sales, and an incomplete quarter of Q10 sales. Did those manage to stem the tide? Will we see the subscribers continue to decline, stay constant, or actually increase?

Here is a history of the subscriber numbers:

2008 - 14m
2009 - 25m
2010 - 41m
2011 - 70m
sep 2012 - 80m
dec 2012 - 79m
mar 2013 - 76m
jun 2013 - ???

[belfastdispatcher]

Unfortunately I predict under 70 millions.

[vibhor]

Unfortunately I predict under 70 millions.

79 million

[Thunderbuck]

Unfortunately I predict under 70 millions.

Wow, that's pessimistic. What leads you to think they've slipped that much?

[emtunc]

74 million - the lack of Q10 in the US doesn't help.

[notfanboy]

I think the rate of subscriber loss in the last couple of quarters has been accelerating. BBRY blamed the recent loss on the US market, but I think the losses have been mounting in the emerging markets as well. This article, Android To Hit RIM in emerging markets, makes some convincing arguments.

There is the matter of pent up demand for the BB10 devices. Some of the loss can be ascribed to people waiting for BB10. However I don't think the Z10 sales were make up for the accelerating losses in the emerging markets. Additionally, all the users who upgraded from a legacy BB device to BB10 would have no net effect on the subscriber numbers.

My guess: 73m

[Shanerredflag]

Subscriber numbers are not the end game any longer (with the elimination of BIS on new OS), other indicators need to be used to measure or gage success/failure.
Those indicators are open to debate of course but a few would be:

Cash burn rate.
BlackBerry ID's
Device Sales
BlackBerry World Sales/downloads
BES 10.1 numbers etc.

Subscriptions are still important but not the be all end all of measuring success .



Posted via CB10

[Shanerredflag]

Oh...and I'll go with 73 as well.

Posted via CB10

[take99]

I believe that they changed how they count subscribers and it does include bb10 phones. I think there could be another slight dip to 74-75 just because the q was only available for a short time this quarter. I think next quarter the number will stabilize with a full quarter of q10 and partial quarter q5.

[belfastdispatcher]

Wow, that's pessimistic. What leads you to think they've slipped that much?

Slow BB10 adoption (I have yet to see one in the wild and this is BB country) and the lack of new BBOS devices (people who had them for 2 years already are not gonna waste an upgrade on the same phone again, my guess is they'll switch platforms as BB10 lacks too many Legacy features) )

It pains me to say that.

[ajst222]

I thought that subscribers don't even matter anymore since that BB10 doesn't even involve BIS. So if that is the case, the subscriber base will decrease.

[The Aficionado]

Although blackberry is making the right moves, facts are that subscribers / users are on the decline and it will take a little while for that trend to stabilize and reverse.

So its just a guess, but I'd say Bb will lose from 2 - 4 million subscribers, unless bb10 adoption has been way better than it seems.

The losses will stabilize and reverse once the q10 and q5 are fully released

Posted via CB10

[bobshine]

I think if they maintain subscriber base it will be an exploit. Sales number are more important according to me... cause it will tell how well the BlackBerry 10 phones are selling. my prediction is that they might dip a bit in subscriber base but sales of BlackBerry 10 would be a few millions. If the subscriber base goes up significantly, the stock might shoot up! get ready!

Posted via CB10

[RECOOL]

depends on the roll out to companys.

[notfanboy]

Because of new (to me) information that Heins already warned of a one percent up to a ten percent decrease in subscribers, I want to change my prediction. I'm going with Heins' lowball number.

New prediction: 69m

[Rickster1]

I agree, subscibers will fall dramatically and probably continue to all this year.Q5 is still a few months away and the 10 phones will have reached most that can afford it in emerging markets. BB needs to look at other revenue streams. BBM going cross platform is great but may be late to the party to have the impact it would have had a year or more ago. Still a very hard battle for BB but as long as cash position is strong they are ok. It is going go take a while to turn things around. it is a good time as there is a lull in the state of smart phones right now. but relying on handset sales is a mugs game going forward anyways. Maybe gwo years tops before saturation takes hold then growth will be in service type reveneu streams.

[Johnny Crack]

Just over 80 million

Posted via CB10 powered by BB10

[DenverRalphy]

Just over 80 million

Posted via CB10 powered by BB10

No way. BB would have had to sell 4mil devices to "new" users. By most indications... BB may have sold that many total by now, but a huge portion of that is to existing users upgrading. And that's not even accounting for users who left the platform.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 4 Beta

[richardat]

Although blackberry is making the right moves, facts are that subscribers / users are on the decline and it will take a little while for that trend to stabilize and reverse.

So its just a guess, but I'd say Bb will lose from 2 - 4 million subscribers, unless bb10 adoption has been way better than it seems.

The losses will stabilize and reverse once the q10 and q5 are fully released

Posted via CB10

You are putting way too much faith in the q10 and q5. Q10 will produce a surge of keyboard loyalists, then drop off fast, merely going about uprgrading the keyboardists. The Q5 could sell well overseas, but of course that's where it needs to compensate for the losses. Most of the Q5 overseas will sell to current subscribers. Moreover, it's actually bad news for BB which is why they were reluctant to go down this route so soon. The Q5 will represent a LOSS to them financially. (edit: not initially...but after costs to produce....relatively low margins...the loss of service revenue will eventually mean that they will probably make about the same in the long run as they make on the older devices now - or less)

Now I argued before launch, that a good strategy might be to go in with q5 initially to build a large base and sell to markets where bb10 will not be seen as catchup, but as new and innovative, but......BB has now been caught by it's own tentative, wait and see, let's make this up as we go, strategy. The iron there is already less hot than it would have been, had they gone in with the q5 4 months ago.

This launch....this strategy, has been so screwed. The only consistent theme has been extreme fear, and hedging of bets by BB - we'll stagger the launch, so the numbers won't be clear (and lose a ton of potential momentum), we'll bring the q5 in late to use that as a 2nd wind savior, we'll delay US launch so if it fizzles there it won't be apparent for a while.....I understand the strategy, but you know what? You're LOSING - badly. You never had the luxury of playing it safe. Yes, you can keep the market dogs at bay for a little while with these tactics....but you'll pay the piper later. Was it worth it? Hope you're enriching yourselves privately.

Love,

Richardat

PS. I have no idea what the numbers will be....I am not convinced the developing nations decline has begun in earnest, though I believe it has begun....we have no idea what the bb10 numbers have been (except for the very meager: shipped a mil). I guess my only feeling is....not much of a change....a little up....a little down. I'd still hope it will go up a little. I would hope that they wouldn't lose more than a few million more than last quarter (though these things have a way of accelerating of course, and that may be optimistic), and hopefully they have sold at least 'enough milllions' of BB 10 to compensate! 4 months ago, or 6 months ago, is that where anybody on CB though we'd be after the release of bb10? Only a few of us I'd imagine.

[lnichols]

Less than last report. Weak rollout of BB1010, combined with not strong sales and probably continued losses in BBOS outpacing BB10 sales.

Posted via CB10

[Dave Bourque]

No increase no decrease, I predict around the same number that was reported.

Posted via CB10

[The Aficionado]

This launch....this strategy, has been so screwed. The only consistent theme has been extreme fear, and hedging of bets by BB - we'll stagger the launch, so the numbers won't be clear (and lose a ton of potential momentum), we'll bring the q5 in late to use that as a 2nd wind savior, we'll delay US launch so if it fizzles there it won't be apparent for a while.....I understand the strategy, but you know what? .

I don't honestly think the delayed us release is strategy but the carriers dragging their feet. I didn't think so at first but looking at how they handle updates, which should really be very easy to release in a timely manner I think it is the carriers.

There will ultimately need to be 3 major players in the mobile realm, and I would bet on bb over windows phone. Although they are losing subscribers right now, I think as long as we see decent bb10 sales and profits the company will be ok

Posted via CB10

[johnnyuk]

Unfortunately I predict under 70 millions.

But of course if BlackBerry had released BBOS 8 alongside BB10 they'd have increased there subscriber base, right? lol

Posted via CB10

[drcrane]

73 million subscribers.

More importantly sell-in of 6 million BB10 units, sell through of about 5 million.

Posted via CB10

[howarmat]

I agree that it will probably be less but i also agree that the bb10 sales numbers is more important as long as the loss in subs is small (1-2 million)