According to a media briefing given by the chief executive of Blackberry Thorsten Heins, the company is looking forward to licensing their smartphone software to other manufacturers with the view to provide devices at low costs in the market. Heins said that the company wants “a portfolio of Blackberry 10 products” along with the Z10 and Q10 devices. This will include a device that is priced in a middle range or maybe a device that will be introduced at the entry level for some markets. However, he also accepted that it would take about six months for Blackberry to be able to achieve this feat.
This strategy of licensing other organizations to manufacture and sell Blackberry smartphones will be something new for this company. This strategy may cause their company’s sales figures to drop, although it will still have a strong control as far as the high end devices are concerned. The result of this move will be that people who right now prefer Apple iPhone, Andriod phones and also the Samsung Galaxy range of smartphones will slowly but surely turn towards Blackberry devices.
As far as the smartphone market is concerned Android has the largest share of the market followed by Apple. These two giants together control 90.6% of the share of the smartphone market. Blackberry stands at a distant third position and the strategy of licensing their products to other manufacturers will help to pull the company out of its lagging position and increase its market share.
The first lot of the new Blackberry devices will be offered for sale in Australia towards the end of March. The main job for Heins will be to ensure that the latest Blackberry 10 technology is launched all over the world in the shortest possible time. This will greatly help the company which was once a leader in the smartphones market all over the world and slowly lost that position.