Blackberry is losing out to iPhones

Research in Motion (RIM) is the company that makes Blackberry phones.  Blackberry mobile phones are going downhill.  The phones that sell the most are iPhones and Androids.  These are dominating the world market.  This is the future of the world market as well.  So people are going for these phones and they don’t like Blackberries as much.

 

RIM is losing jobs and revenue as well.  There have been 5,000 layoffs for this company because the company is losing money.  Their net sales went down by 42% a year ago to $2.8 billion.  The CEO Heins chose to cut costs and downsize but this is not enough for the company.  It must find innovative ways to sell their products in the global market.  The CEO is not doing the best job as well.  He needs to find creative ways to sell the product to gain more of a market share in the phone market.

 

The Blackberry was first a business phone.  Many business people, lawyers, consultants and other people who are in organizations had Blackberrys. This wasn’t enough for the RIM so they had to expand to the regular consumer.  They made it more user friendly so the average person could use it, not just corporate people. They gave the phone a music player which most people do not know about.

 

They should have set up an office inSilicon Valleybecause this would have given them an opportunity to see what other companies are doing. It would have made them compete more with these companies.

 

In 2010 they set a plan to make a touch-screen rival to iPhone. They came up with the Blackberry Torch which did not do too well. RIM needs to learn to discontinue products and make new ones.  Many tech companies have bad products but they are discontinued and the company learns from their mistake. Companies such as Microsoft had Zune and Apple hadNewton.  Both of these companies did not do well but they reset and brought out better products.  RIM did not make a new innovative product.  Their product called playbook did not do too well and they lost a lot of money on unsold playbooks.

 

There is still hope for RIM to succeed though.  They have over $2 billion is cash on hand.  The bottom side is that the cash can go away due to costs.  Also many of the people who left blackberry for iPhone are not coming back anytime soon. So they have to find innovative ways to get people to subscribe to Blackberry.

 

He should invest in developing countries as well because there would be a market for the phones.  The price is what is most important to know.  There is an elite in the developing world that will buy the phone because they need it.  The problem will be setting up the infrastructure in the developing world to make it be efficient.

 

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2012/07/how-the-blackberry-died.html

 

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2012/06/rim-dying-because-it-got-future-phones-completely-wrong/54031/

6 thoughts on “Blackberry is losing out to iPhones

  1. It appears that RIM is struggling to keep up with innovations. They have recognized that they are facing competition with touch phones such as the iPhone as well as the Android and tried to produce their own touch phone. However, they are failing to respond to the consumers’ feedback. Because the Blackberry Torch is not selling well, they either need to evaluate how they can improve their existing product or invest in creating a different, better functioning touch phone. Otherwise, their $2 billion is cash on hand will be gone very quickly.

  2. It’s really interesting to see a product boom and bust in such a short span of time. At one point, the Blackberry was the symbol of status and cool in the phone world. Now, it can barely keep up with the technologically advanced iPhone and Samsung Galaxy SIII. In order to save the brand, I believe Blackberry will have to allow itself to make drastic changes. Instead of focusing on older professionals, why not target young, urban entrepreneurs that don’t need Angry Birds on their phone? If Blackberry streamlined its phone, made it more user friendly and fast, they could be back on top. They just have to listen to what their customers want and expect from a phone in 2013.

  3. I was very intrigued by this blog because I am huge fan of both blackberry and Iphone phones. The biggest thing that caught my eyes was the fact that RIM was down 42% in net sales. That is a large percentage for a company. It seems to me that more and more buyers are leaning towards getting the Iphone. Apple Iphones were the most popular smartphone sold in the US last year and they don’t seem to be on the decline. Executive Branch and other professionals are starting to prefer the Iphone over the Blackberry. Mbator made a valid point when saying,”Instead of focusing on older professionals, why not target young, urban entrepreneurs that don’t need Angry Birds on their phone?” I agree with this statement to some degree. I think that RIM definitely needs to make some changes in order to compete with the iphone. They can target younger people, but their main target has always been business related people. I believe they should improve the look of the Blackberry. It has to look better than the Blackberry 10. I also think the Blackberry should be able to do things that the Iphone can do. For example, the Blackberry needs to make sure it has search, speech input, and easy sharing for social networking. They have to ensure the customer that they can do these things and do them well. I think this is a good starting point especially if they want to compete long term with Apple.

  4. When I saw this topic I had to write something about it because I am a big fan for blackberry but not a iphone. This really amazed me that the fact that RIM was down 42% in net sales. I know long time ago most of the business people were using blackberry because it was safer, but now even thought more people started using iphone are having problem with the company privacy. My friends that used iphone for business propose that told me there is more rick with getting other people information in your iphone or you might get other people info in yours, in fact it has happen to someone that I know. But, I think after couple years Blackberry will be competing with iphone.

  5. I think the main question is..who is the target market or consumer for blackberry? Yes at first it was strictly business individuals but now things change and they kind of switch to iPhone. However I think if blackberry target a more youthful market and innovate things differently with the blackberry they could in fact out sale iPhone!

  6. Who isn’t losing to iPhone? Blackberry may try to make a comeback, which is great but like the post previous to mine says, Blackberry is considered as a “business” phone. The iPhone on the other hand works for anyone, business or not. In order for Blackberry to attract customers they need to address why the phone works for everyone.

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