Hasta La Gadget!

After taking so long to transition to its next-gen OS platform, the company formerly known as RIM has an awful lot riding on its first BlackBerry 10 handset, the Z10. The handset launched at the end of January in the U.K. and early February in Canada (and is due to make its official U.S. debut this month). Not a great sign, then, that some U.K. phone retailers appear to be cutting the price of Z10 tariffs, a mere month after launch — suggesting demand isn’t as strong as hoped, and that the device isn’t as competitive against the high end of Android and iOS as BlackBerry needs it to be.

Both Carphone Warehouse and Vodafone have slashed tariffs, according to the Telegraph. It also appears that Phones 4u is offering cheaper deals now. BB10 is BlackBerry’s attempt to turn around its sliding smartphone fortunes by offering a device to compete with the likes of the iPhone and Samsung’s Galaxy SIII. BlackBerry’s global smartphone marketshare fell to just 3.5 per cent in Q4 2012, according to analyst Gartner, down from 8.8 per cent in Q4 2011, while Samsung and iOS took 52 per cent of all smartphone sales in Q4 2012.

Carphone Warehouse initially priced the BlackBerry Z10 from £36 per month on pay monthly contract, bundling the cost of the handset into that tariff. It is now offering the phone from as little as £29 per month, although that tariff includes a £29 up-front free for the handset. The Telegraph also says Vodafone has introduced a new web-only deal for the Z10, costing £33 per month (this tariff also requires an up-front fee of £129). Phones 4u is also offering the Z10 on a £29 per month contract (again with a £29 charge for the handset), having initially launched the phone on contracts starting at £36 per month. It is also offering even cheaper tariffs, of around £20 per month, but with a much higher up-front fee for the device.

The Telegraph quotes James Faucette, an analyst at Pacific Crest, who said the tariff cuts move the Z10 away from the highest margin segment of the smartphone business. “We believe that meaningful price cuts so soon after launch, while probably at the initial discretion of the carriers, is likely to relegate the Z10 to being a mid-tier device with very low gross margins,” he said.

BlackBerry has been making a lot of noise about Z10 sales but hasn’t backed up its hype with any hard numbers, saying only that demand had exceeded expectation and that the Z10 is selling in “large numbers“. We’ve reached out to BlackBerry, Carphone Warehouse and Phones 4u for comment on the tariff reductions and will update this story with any response.

Asked how sales were going in the Z10′s launch market, the U.K., at the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona last week, BlackBerry’s U.K. & Ireland MD Rob Orr also shied away from sharing any numbers, saying he was unable to provide much detail ahead of BlackBerry’s quarterly results.

Early sales in the U.K. have been “very positive”, he told TechCrunch, adding: “I’m in a quiet period so I’ll caveat my statement with the fact that our fiscal year ends on [March 1st] and we publish results on the 28th. Regulated from a quiet period perspective I can’t share too much detail but I’m very pleased with the results, the partners are very pleased with the results. Take a look at some of the feedback on Phones 4u’s site or Vodafone’s site are very positive.

“The feedback from our enterprise customers has been brilliant. Really really good. They love what we’ve done with BES 10, they’re aligned with the approach that we’re taking, they’re cracking on with all their internal trials and their user testing and all the stuff that enterprises do before they do mass rollouts. So I’m really pleased. Couldn’t really have asked more from the support I’ve had in the market.”

Expect to get more concrete details on exactly how positive (or not) the BB10 launch has been when the company announces its fiscal Q4 and fiscal full year results at the end of this month.

While the introduction of cheaper monthly tariffs may not help BlackBerry’s bottom line in the long run, it may help to drive a few more Z10 sales in the short term to help buoy up its results. In the mean time, all the vague, non-quantifiable statements aren’t helping dispel the sense that RIM isn’t yet doing enough to dig itself out of the smartphone doldrums.

Everybody knows what’s at stake for BlackBerry. The Z10 is its shot to stop its considerable bleeding and shut everyone up. But launching a brand new OS with brand new hardware isn’t easy. And it’s even harder to match expectations when both have been delayed again and again. More »

Jim Balsillie, the former co-CEO of Research in Motion (now known as BlackBerry), has been until recently the third-largest shareholder in the company with 5.1 percent ownership. According to Financial Post, however, he’s cut his stake in BlackBerry altogether, now reporting a grand total of zero shares. Balsillie stepped down as co-CEO in January and resigned from the board in March; this next big move away from the company will likely lead to speculation that his interest or faith in BlackBerry’s future is waning, though his successor certainly would beg to differ.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Blackberry

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Source: Financial Post

When it comes to the business segment, it would seem that no company has more to lose than BlackBerry – as proven this week by stock prices falling at news the Home Depot will soon be switching to iPhone. The yet-unofficial announcement that Home Depot would be dropping their company-wide use of BlackBerry devices for Apple’s mobile phone option will have the company formerly known as RIM servicing around 100,000 devices fewer once the full switch is made. It would seem that stocks of BlackBerry dipped down as far as 6 percent in early trading today while the stock appears to be a bit more on the rebound as noon arrives.

The big switch will affect Home Depot store managers and corporate employees on the whole, while the general store employee population are not currently smartphone-carrying members, so to speak. When you work at Home Depot ranked any member Store Manager or above, a corporate smartphone plan goes into effect. With the brand new reveal and release of the BlackBerry 10 mobile OS, it would appear that the home repair and construction supply company is not suitably impressed.

Employees that work on the floor – those that you the customer would interact with on the daily, behind the counter and helping you load up planks of wood into your odd carts – will continue to use Motorola smartphones. According to inside sources speaking with Apple Insider, the iPhone switch will not affect the some 60,000 employees working with the “rugged” Motorola phones currently in use by floor employees.

This is not the first company to have tossed BlackBerry aside over the past few months, but given that Home Depot is the fifth largest retailer in the entire modern world, it’s certainly a significant one. Keep your eyes on the prize, BlackBerry, and make sure you prove yourselves to the enterprise universe real quick! Have a peek at the timeline below to see other recent BlackBerry happenings to keep track of the magic!

[Image via Martin Hajek]

Home Depot says no to BlackBerry 10: iPhone a go is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

In light of lackluster demand, BlackBerry (previously RIM) has elected to forego BlackBerry sales in Japan. According to Reuters, this is due to an extremely small market share in the nation of only 0.3-percent, a drastic fall from the already tiny 5-percent it previously held. Because of this, the burden of creating a Japanese version of its BlackBerry OS isn’t worth it.

While Reuters couldn’t reach the company for comment, the folks over at Engadget did get a response from a company spokesperson who confirmed the rumors. In the response, the spokesperson said: “Japan is not a major market for BlackBerry and we have no plans to launch BlackBerry 10 devices there at this time. However, we will continue to support BlackBerry customers in Japan.”

On Wednesday, we reported that BlackBerry 10 had a wildly successful launch day in Canada, where the company broke its own records by 50-percent. In addition, BlackBerry has reported that its sales in the UK are nearly thrice the best initial week sales of any other BlackBerry handset.

BlackBerry 10 isn’t set to release in the United States until near the end of March, with the Q10 not slated to hit shelves until several weeks after the Z10. Many feel this is a bad move on BlackBerry’s part, something that will ultimately hurt it, especially given the long duration over which BlackBerry 10 has been discussed and has been in development.

[via Engadget]

BlackBerry won’t be releasing any more handsets in Japan is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.