FAILURE OF BLACKBERRY

Blackberry was founded in 1984. Blackberry is a communication device that was developed in the year 1999 by Research in Motion (RIM) company. Their security features, iconic QWERTY keyboards and email systems made blackberry phones a popular choice back in time. Blackberry phones were the king of smartphones. They made history by selling more than 5 crore units in a single year. They controlled 43% of the smartphone market in the US and 20% of the global market.

RIM company was developed a wireless radio modem with the available technology. Thereafter, RIM company collaborated with other companies in software development and wireless email system. They did a commendable job in all of these. RIM, thus evolved into a high profit company. In 1999, they changed their name from RIM to Blackberry. By 2000, they were able to generate mobile phones independently. The model released was Blackberry 957.

They were able to bring updates quickly and this gained the popularity and liking of consumers especially the businessmen. Blackberry phones brought rapid changes in their features. They introduced color display, camera and QWERTY keyboard. It aided in sending quick emails. But in 2007, Steve Jobs conducted an Apple event and he mocked that blackberry phones as baby software and he also criticized indirectly. Then the I-phone launches and their update features, initially all these didn't affected the market of blackberry. Because people were reluctant to shift complete touch phone with no button and also I-phone was expensive.

With the introduction of Android phones in 2008, everything turned upside down. The competition was boosted up. By 2010, the market of blackberry began to get affected. It was nowhere near to the marketing strategies of Apple. Their market share fell by 5% in 2012 might be because of their ego, blackberry was reluctant to change their QWERTY keyboard. But when the company began to witness down fall in 2012, they were ready to launch touch phones. But they released their first touchphone only in 2013. They were very late in bringing such changes. By the time they brought this change, the consumers world was changed into Android or I-phones.

In 2016, they decided to stop making it's own phones, after year of failures. The name blackberry itself started to disappear. People don't need their touchphone anymore. In January 2022, company announced that they will not be providing new updates in the software and old phones also will not be having new updates in the software. The production of the smartphone were stopped even before that. So it is clear that company is almost dead. The company is still alive but they are wiped out from the smartphone area. They still run their company through other businesses.

In conclusion, it's competitive advantage lies in it's focus on security, it's expertise in mobile technology and software development. The introduction of the Apple I-phone, which blackberry didn't take seriously caused a loss of market share and also excessive focus on enterprise over consumer taste and preference. The main reasons are : They ignored the trend, lack of innovation, incapability to judge, lack of consumer insight and poor design.

AISWARYA K