BlackBerry Priv News: Handset Sales May Not Be Too Good, Cheaper Priv In The Works
BlackBerry is hoping that their recent flagship, the BlackBerry Priv, will bring them back into the smartphone industry game after dismal performance in sales in the past with their BlackBerry phones and their proprietary operating system. With the BlackBerry Priv using Android, the company admittedly was able to save a lot on production costs because they did not have to develop their own OS. As of December, BlackBerry's handset sales did not reach their projected target and according to a report in Android Authority, it is unclear how much Priv sales contributed to this.
According to the report, BlackBerry CEO John Chen was optimistic about the company's future. He revealed that despite below target sales, they were able to "reduce losses incurred during the quarter, ultimately sending the stock price up." Of the 700,000 units sold, it is not clear how many of these were BlackBerry Priv units, but the report said that it is likely that this number is the total number of devices sold.
Mr. Chen was vague about the sales performance of the Priv during this past year. He however mentioned that sometime during the start of 2016, the company may need to reduce the price of the Priv especially since new technology, which is likely cheaper, will be coming out of the Mobile World Congress. The report noted that the Priv's price point is quite high for a device that in some cases may be considered mid-range. Comparing its specs to other flagship smartphones, the Priv is already classified as "mid-tier" – the phone only has a Snapdragon 808 rather than an 810; it only has 3 GB of RAM rather than 4 GB and its display is not the latest AMOLED display available. Lastly, the phone's casing is made of plastic, not of premium materials like metal or glass.
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The success of the Priv will also dictate whether they will continue to develop a follow-up device in 2016, which is going to be a cheaper device than the Priv. According to Chen, ""We will probably still focus very much on the high-end, maybe a little more mid-range or so," in another report in Techno Buffalo.
