BlackBerry held their quarterly earnings call earlier today and CEO Thorsten Heins announced BBM for iOS will be released “before the end of the summer” (via MobileSyrup), so for the few of you (5 people?) waiting for the app, you’ll have to wait a bit longer. Back in May, BlackBerry announced the app would be coming this summer.
Here some details from BlackBerry’s 2013 Q1 quarterly earnings report:
In comparison, Apple sold 37.4 million iPhones in its most recent second quarter to go with $43.6 billion in revenue.
So the much-anticipated BlackBerry 10 was outsold by its regular smartphones. Sales of BB10 devices (2.7 million) barely met the low-end of estimates made by analysts, according to the WSJ:
What is surprising is the announcement the BlackBerry PlayBook, once touted as a magical, game-changing tablet by the company will not be getting its most recent operating system, BlackBerry 10. Why? Heins said he wasn’t happy with the level of the tablet’s experience and decided to nix efforts to concentrate on its core smartphone products.
Oh, BlackBerry.
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This is sad. They delayed and delayed for R&D, made $3.1B revenue, and still weren’t profitable. In fact, I’ve used the product and it’s uninspiring. The excitement of early adopters was quickly thwarted by an unrewarding experience that was always a few steps behind. They basically released a 2011 phone in 2013.
BBM for iOS would have had a huge impact in 2010. 4 million subs left. Including 80% of my BBM contact list. There are too many alternatives now: Whatsapp, iMessage, Facebook Messages, Google Hangouts, WeChat, Line, etc.
If only they went back into startup mode and were more nimble.
Now the only thing that touts their stuff is BlackBerry PR and advertising.
100,000 people downloaded a fake, unadvertised BBM app on Android recently before Google removed it. There is clearly many people that want it…
if you think 100,000 people is a lot in the grand scheme of android users you’re probably really dumb.
That doesn’t really prove anything, other than the fact knock off apps on Google Play are widely available to trick people.
The company is not doing well at all, but why being so sarcastic/arrogant in this article ?
It’s a reflection of what RIM/BlackBerry has been stuffing in our faces over the past couple years–that BB10 is set to change the game, the PlayBook is a fantastic tablet, the company is reversing it’s previous failures, etc. All that noise has faded away and the numbers have spoken.
“so for the few of you (5 people?) waiting for the app, you’ll have to wait a bit longer” — I for one will be downloading this app…regardless of what happens to RIM/BlackBerry in the future the fact remains that there is still a huge number of BlackBerry users out there, some of them friends, family and colleagues and having this app will provide a more convenient and less expensive alternative to text messages.
Okay, so that’s one person so far 😀
All kidding aside, the app would be very useful for iOS and Android users to chat with BBM users. Let’s just wait and see if it ships on time.
They delayed and delayed for R&D, and basically released a 2011 phone in 2013.
Generated $3.1B in revenue, and still were not profitable.
The excitement of my early adopter friends was muted by a mediocre UX within two weeks. The device is not bad, but the software is uninspiring. I don’t think Instagram plans to develop for the BlackBerry App World and that’s a tell-tale sign of developer confidence. Safe to say the only apps on BlackBerry are ones BlackBerry struck deals with.
A cross-platform BBM would have had a huge impact in 2010! There are too many alternatives now: Whatsapp, iMessage, Facebook Messages, Google Hangouts, WeChat, Line, etc.
Hard to recover from a 4 million customer churn.
If only they went back into startup mode and were more nimble.
Now the only ones touting BlackBerry is BlackBerry PR and their enormous ad spend.