BlackBerry’s fall from dominating the smartphone market was rather swift and stunning due to the rising brands of Apple and Samsung that it eventually lost 20% of market share in 2009. As a result, the efforts placed into the next 5 years to shake off the image of it being out was to launch a new product – Passport; will it be enough for Blackberry to regain its position over it’s competitors? In fact, it was a success!!
The success of the Passport was attributed to Blackberry’s shift in strategy. According to Porter’s Generic Strategics, Blackberry is utilizing the differentiation strategy in order to create uniqueness over a broad industry. As the Smartphone industry is very broad including many other competitors such as Apple, LG, Samsung, etc…, what makes Passport so successful was it’s ability to differentiate itself from other smartphones offered by other brands. The passport includes a full HD Display that is 4.5 inches squares, allowing 60 characters to be typed across the screen unlike other smartphones of only 40 characters and battery life lasts as long as 36 hours.
Although the Passport is priced $50 cheaper at $690 than the leading iOS and Android,it is not a strategy involving cost leadership but instead acts like a “discount” in order to get the market interested into the product. Despite BlackBerry’s success of the Passport, to further stabilize its position in the competition, it would have to further lower their costs and continue innovating in order to satisfy the fast and ever dynamic consumer trends on electronics.
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