Originally Posted by
marksthespot60 After reviewing the link you provided, when benchmarked, 650RM is a competitive price for that market, however, there were two findings which are worth mentioning-
• On the website you provided, Nokia is heavily attacking this price range from 315RM to 515RM. Given that they're moving into Android now too, I wouldn't be surprised if they start coming into play with android devices as well, in addition to the other non-Nokia android devices already well under this price. Also, the iPhone 5s starts at 700RM. Which isn't too far off from the 650RM. While 650RM is competitive, it seems like Nokia is under bidding them by a good amount (idk what the difference is when converted, but it's like probably like a $80 difference or something). Good news is that Nokia may not have a lot of traction there yet. Not sure if that's true or not. Insight, anyone?
• You have misunderstood my question. It's not, who would be so cheap to buy a $200 phone. It's, who would spend so much money for a mid-level phone, from a brand that is shamed. Clearly there are windows phones and android devices well below this price point and guess what, they all have more apps than BlackBerry. Before you have an aneurism and say it, that BlackBerrys can load Andorid apps too, it doesn't matter because the messaging isn't there. No one knows. And to my earlier comment, the phones aren't going to sell themselves no matter what they can do. I think that's pretty safe to assume. BlackBerry needs to market it, and then maybe we could start seeing some change in the brand, however, they'll first need to put it into a press release, which they haven't done yet. Not really sure why? Seems like they may wait until a next release. Good luck with sales waiting for that.
While I may be absurd, I definitely am not as absurd as to say, "no one buys sub-$200 phones". I mean, more of those have sold than BlackBerrys, we know that.
Cheers. Again, thanks for sharing the link and giving the conversion.
Just to point out some flaws:
1. BlackBerry isn't shamed, and people don't care if they can get android apps (illegal or legal). If it can, then it'll do. Because people will still find ways to install games, apps, and everything Android related.
2. Nokia's Android offering is exactly the same as what BlackBerry does: everything android but no Google Play, no Google apps. Everything replaced with Bing, Nokia Maps, etc.
3. The phones will sell themselves alright. Sub USD100 phones with only GPRS/EDGE, quad core MTK chips with 1GB RAM do sell themselves very well. Why? Because it can run Android. Irregardless whether it is a BlackBerry, BlueBerry (its a chinese-malaysian phone vendor), Ninetology, or any obscure Chinese / Taiwanese brand, it will sell itself, as long as its cheap enough. At Sub USD600, its bloody cheap enough for BlackBerry to sell itself. Of course, the retailers are going to break the rules by saying "it can do lots of things Android can do". Why do you think low end Androids are so sought after? Its also partially because these retailers broke the rule, like how certain big companies that sell heavily skinned Android devices instructed them to do (*Cough* anything you see in Play Store, paid or not, we can get it for you here, just pay up front USD10, we'll get it fixed. So now you have an iPhone for the price of a cheap *** phone! *Cough*)
Already, there are retailers selling the cheaper STL-100-1 Z10s exactly under USD350 with the same tactics. They don't care. All they do is they just want to sell it. And since BlackBerry 10.2.1 just made it much easier to install APKs, they will do it, they (the retailers) will go for it. All that remains is to what else to bundle with. (telco plans, pre paid plans, individualized internet pre-pay plans, etc).
Talking about shamed, another company has a worse reputation, and that's MediaTek. But people don't care. All they care is "oh, so it can run Android? No problemo!" and they'll happily snap up. Else why would counterfeit branded devices running on MTK chips become such a sought after device, despite knowing that they're being ripped off?
On the price war front, bringing a full touch screen the size of z30 into sub usd200 will find itself in a very nice niche position against the newer Lenovo s800s (or was it the s900s, also with the 5.x" screens) and against the likes of Samsung Galaxy Mega, (the 6" behemoth) because you get a similar spec, with a much lower price. And the retailers are going to hound "you can play Android here too!". Not because i've got anaeurism, but somebody's just too high on his high horse to even understand the S.E.A market and suddenly pretending that he's an economic messiah and start to cry doom for all BlackBerry devices!
Perhaps, you just really don't understand S.E.A market and why the Z3 is appealing for the S.E.A market. (then again, reflected as in per your first post, and your squirreling in your post that I've quoted).