If the Blackberry Priv doesn’t start flying off the shelves as soon as it hits them this week, this phone may well be Blackberry’s final bow in the smartphone market. The Blackberry takes up less than 1% of global smartphone sales, so it’s fair to say that as things stand, this is the Blackberry smartphone’s swan song.
The Blackberry Priv, though coming at a steep price, hoped to entice businesses with the phone’s new features. It runs on Google’s Android software, so it has wide access to apps and other utilities, and it remains protected by Blackberry’s formidable security features. The phone is also stylish, similar looking to the Samsung Galaxy S4, with a trackpad that doubles as a slide out keyboard. The rest is a touch screen, with an 18 megapixel camera. It also alerts users when apps are accessing location, camera or microphone, like a security push notification.
CEO of Blackberry John Chen himself has admitted that their handhelds have been selling terribly. Blackberry has only managed to sell 800,000 devices in its last quarter, and Chen hopes to bring this number up to five million. But with a starting price of $700 for a sim less Priv, it doesn’t seem very likely that users will jump to the opportunity to swap from their current devices. The same cannot be said for customers looking to upgrade, and if sales don’t increase, Chen claims he’ll pull the device from the market entirely.
Although the company is currently sitting on a fortune of $3 billion, it is unlikely that Blackberry will shut down entirely, but if the Blackberry Priv doesn’t sell well, it’s likely the last smartphone that Blackberry will release.
