the rise & fall of blackberry

 

Blackberry was phenomenally successful in the late 90’s with its line of smartphones and tablets – their arched keyboard changed the game in the mobile industry. Blackberry was the first smartphone for millions of users – they were capable of connecting to the Internet, chat via BlackBerry Messenger (BBM), as well as send and receive email. Moreover, BlackBerry had one of the top encryptions in the game, it was so popular to the point that it sold over fifty million devices in 2011 (Dunn, 2016). Unfortunately, their focus on was not on user experience – this was their downfall (Pressman, 2016).

The first iPhone was released in 2007 and users were getting accustomed to full touchscreens; this feature quickly became fashionable however Blackberry was too stubborn to adapt to change and stuck with their trademark physical keyboard. By the fourth quarter of 2016, out of approximately 500 million smartphones sold in the global market, only 207,900 of them were running on BlackBerry Operating System (Swearingen, 2017) – a huge drop from their peak, and a weak competitor to iPhone that had sold two-hundred and eleven million devices that same year (Rosoff, 2016). John Chen, the CEO of BlackBerry in 2017 announced that they will be backing out from the smartphone manufacturing business and focusing on software development (Aaslaid, 2019).

Inasmuch as BlackBerry had a good start, their conservatism and complacency led to their market share being annihilated – keeping BlackBerry Messenger locked down to their hardware was a terrible strategic move, especially when a cross-platform application like WhatsApp surfaced and grew into a $19 billion business (Savov, 2016). The rise and fall of BlackBerry will always be a case study for businesses that refuse to adapt to new times.

 

 

 

 

 

References

Aaslaid, K. (2019, July 02). 50 Examples of Corporations That Failed to Innovate. Retrieved September 8, 2020, from https://www.valuer.ai/blog/50-examples-of-corporations-that-failed-to-innovate-and-missed-their-chance

Dunn, J. (2016, September 30). Here's how dramatic BlackBerry's fall has actually been. Retrieved September 8, 2020, from https://www.businessinsider.com/blackberry-phone-sales-decline-chart-2016-9

Pressman, A. (2016, June 10). Obama Finally Moves into Modern Smartphone Era, Sort Of. Retrieved September 8, 2020, from https://fortune.com/2016/06/10/president-obamas-new-smartphone-is-more-like-a-toddler-phone/

Rosoff, M. (2016, April 25). The end of the iPhone's amazing eight-year run. Retrieved September 8, 2020, from https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-iphone-sales-by-year-2016-4

Savov, V. (2016, September 30). BlackBerry's success led to its failure. Retrieved September 8, 2020, from https://www.theverge.com/2016/9/30/13119924/blackberry-failure-success

Swearingen, J. (2017, February 15). BlackBerry's Global Market Share Is Now 0.0 Percent. Retrieved September 8, 2020, from https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/02/blackberrys-global-market-share-is-now-0-0.html