Nook—Billy's Marketing Blog

It is hard to ignore that BlackBerry is still in the top tier regarding of the mobile device management system. This is always the core business of BlackBerry and that’s way many companies choose BlackBerry as their mobile solution. In terms of security, usability and acknowledgement, BlackBerry still have the competitive advantage.

Why don’t bring this to Chinese companies which are lack of mobile solution?

1. With the trend of BYOD, BlackBerry developed new BlackBerry Enterprise Solution 10 which can manage IOS, Android and BlackBerry devices at the same time. Companies can save a large amount of money for buying new devices for the employee but benefit from the new BES 10. With this selling point, many cost-leadership Chinese companies will prefer BlackBerry.

2. More and more Chinese companies are aware of the security issue. When changing from imitation to creation, companies don’t want their hard work to be stolen. Thinking about security, even US government is using BlackBerry; this will bring a strong image to Chinese companies that BlackBerry is the top in kind.

3. Most importantly, demand from Chinese companies is huge. Lots of Companies don’t even have a mobile solution for their employees. They haven’t noticed the advantage of extending the desktop to your handheld and doing business 24/7. BlackBerry needs some strong strategic alliances like Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent which are the biggest three IT companies in China. With their help and impact, many middle sized companies would like to follow their path and co-operate with BlackBerry as well.

In short, I think BlackBerry still have some chances in Chinese market. What BlackBerry needs to do is loss weight first, and become a niche player in consumer market and focus more on business market. For example, with selling the laptop department, IBM focus more on business service solutions, and become successful again. Best wishes to BlackBerry.

If you are interested in Tech, probably one of the most breaking news recently is BlackBerry will be totally bought out. Their new phones Z10 and Q10 are not selling well and the company is kicked out of the smartphone game. Maybe BlackBerry is never good for consumer market, at least in North America. However, BlackBerry is hot sale in Southeast Asia and Africa market, my  question is why they just ignore the second largest economic entity-Chinese market?

I understand that their could be a number of entry barriers and competitors for BlackBerry in Chinese market, but I still could see some opportunities for the company to come back to the game.

Consumer Market:

1. Large amount of population and rapid growing of smart phone market. If you want to do consumer business, you need to find where people are. Chinese people have the higher buying power than India and Southeast Asia counties. Counties like UK, they call it hot sale is about selling 1000+ BlackBerry devices during weekend. In China, hot sale can be millions of devices.

2. Strong brand image recognition. Frankly, due to TV, Hollywood movie and newspaper exposure, BlackBerry is getting a high brand recognition in China even without any marketing campaign. People have the idea that BlackBerry used to compete with Apple. Also, because of BlackBerry got the US government contract and President Obama is a loyal BlackBerry fan, this gives a lot of impression to normal Chinese consumers and they want to know more about this product. This could be at lease one huge selling chance.

3. Niche player in high end market. Vertu is a very high end cellphone company which pricing its phones around $6000 dollars, but it still can sell thousands of device every year. There are a group of people in China who want to be different, and don’t like to use Apple and Android devices. They need smartphones to differentiate themselves from others. BlackBerry can be a perfect maker for those people. Actually, Blackberry already had a phone partner with Proche Design and price around $2000 dollars. BlackBerry need a few more these products and targeting for Chinese high end market. For example, partner with LV and Channel for the phone design as well as accessories.