BlackBerry – ‘sailing off a cliff’

BlackBerry has get into a bad predicament. Recently, the stock price of BlackBerry has fallen to the company’s liquidation value, and BlackBerry also declared a quarterly loss that neared $1 billion. What is more, BlackBerry announced plans to reduce workforce by 4,500. In addition, BlackBerry is thinking about selling off a number of its office buildings in the Waterloo region.

What happened to BlackBerry, one of the most famous cell phone brand in the world?

From my perspective, BlackBerry is losing its marketshare of cell phone market because BlackBerry lacks of apps and users gradually change their taste to popular smart phone brand like Apple and Samsung, which are in the dominating positions of  the market. In another word, cell phone market is very competitive although few people appreciate that. According to the theory of Porter’s five forces, BlackBerry faces a threat of substitutes because the technology of cell phone is evolving in an amazing speed, and the average cost is declining. Customers have more and more alternatives than before. BlackBerry is impacted a lot, though it has strong supply power and well-positioned brand, which targets to businessmen.

References:

http://mobilesyrup.com/2013/10/02/blackberry-starts-thinking-of-selling-its-waterloo-office-space/

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/21/us-blackberry-warning-idUSBRE98J0V220130921