The news of the blackberry messenger (BBM) becoming available on other platforms must have been quite a shocker for most of us. When I discussed it with some of my folks, they had only one question – “what were those guys smoking in the board room?!” I mean, which organization gives away its most valuable, and probably,the only existing asset away to the world for free? Was it a gesture of social service, a sign of giving up, or a well thought out strategy?
Lets try to connect some dots.
If you see the shares of the OS market, iOS and android account for 92.3 percent of the market. Even a new entrant, windows, has beaten the veteran to claim the third spot. In India, the BlackBerry OS market share is 2.9%, down from the 6.4% in 2012. (Source: http://bit.ly/12kFBVN). However, on a global scale, the fall has been from 8.8% to 3.5% (Source: http://gtnr.it/X72kkI ) .
Blackberry, in itself has gone through a lot of changes in recent times. They have re-positioned themselves from an office phone to being youth-centric. The handsets have become more affordable with modifications to the skin. However, the transition of their OS has not been as fast. Maybe they realize the youth wants more, much more than what their OS provide them , and eventually want to phase out the blackberry OS, and graduate to iOS and android. This will give them more time and freedom to concentrate on the handset market. That is where the real money is.
This move might be a goodwill gesture towards Android and iOS so they can later on use these operating systems in their handsets.
Currently, they are in bad shape. There sales have been declining year on year. It didn’t even feature in the top 10 mobile handsets sales in Q4, 2012 (Source : http://gtnr.it/X72kkI ) To improve sales, they have launched all sorts of handsets in the market. They even launched their smartphone Z10 which recently got into the controversy of the returns outnumbering sales (Source: http://on.wsj.com/12Mzazm ). A lot of negetive publicity for the brand needs damage control from the brand’s end.
From a messenger available on handsets, the main competitors of BBM would be Watsapp and Viber. From a feature perspective, almost all the features are the same. Watsapp and BBM are better than Viber because of the call functionality. (Source: http://bit.ly/10GIvCH ) The main difference between Watsapp and BBM is the pin feature of BBM. While Watsapp becomes activated just by adding another Watsapp user to the contact list, BBM would need a pin to add anyone in their list. This would help people graduate to a more personal group where just being on the contact list and using the app would not mean you are welcome. People having Watsapp would start using BBM because of human need of going for the forbidden fruit once available in the market for free, and then feed their intrinsic need for privacy. This snob factor might help creating a perceptual differentiation similar to what Apple has done with the smartphones. This would increase the brand recall, which they will use to sell the handsets. They have also changed their name from RIM to BlackBerry during the launch of their Z10 model (Source : http://bloom.bg/XiCvin ) .
Maybe this whole exercise the beginning of a long term branding strategy for Blackberry to keep the name alive, and have a different positioning in the handset market altogether.
Lets see how this one pans out for them.
Indian Marketing Campaigns 