Despite its more than decent specs and its high security features, the Blackberry Priv was for all intents and purposes, a failure in terms of sales. Its high price point is what they’re blaming for the less than favorable sales figures, which was far from their forecast and targets. And so CEO John Chen has shared that they will soon be releasing two mid-range devices that will also have a lower price range and they will hopefully make up for the poor sales of their first Android smartphone.
Blackberry still hasn’t released the actual sales for the Priv, but for its last quarter sales, they disclosed that they sold 600,000 units across all its phone models. It is not a good figure, both for its forecast and also compared to their competitors, although they only had one Android smartphone, to be fair. But hopes were high for the Priv, particularly as there is practically no one else in the market that had a slider physical keyboard like theirs.
Chen admits that releasing a high-end smartphone for their first Android smartphone may not have been the wisest decision. That is why they will soon be releasing at least two mid-range devices, that may be around the price range of $400. Chen says that enterprise customers have named that the price that they were interested in, as compared to the $700 that the Priv is selling at now.
There is no concrete news yet as to when the new devices will be released but it will most probably still carry their secure features, which is what differentiated the Priv, aside from the aforementioned physical keyboard. Chen also confirmed that they do not plan to release a new Blackberry 10 smartphone, although updates will still be given for the existing users.
VIA: SlashGear
It’s probably the right decision to release mid-range devices, though they should have at the same time they released the Priv.
we are all very tired of this crap
“they disclosed that they sold 600,000 units across all its phone models.”
Thanks for making this clear. I can’t believe how many ‘tech’ sites are declaring those were ‘Priv’ sales, which may well be the minor fraction of the figure.