Jakarta Globe, Muhammad Al Azhari, May 13, 2014
Jakarta. BlackBerry has responded to a falling market share in Indonesia by launching its low-cost, touchscreen Z3 smartphone, John S. Chen, the executive chairman and chief executive at the Canadian company said.
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| The new Blackberry Z3. (Photo Courtesy of BlackBerry) |
Jakarta. BlackBerry has responded to a falling market share in Indonesia by launching its low-cost, touchscreen Z3 smartphone, John S. Chen, the executive chairman and chief executive at the Canadian company said.
The
BlackBerry Z3, Jakarta Edition — built exclusively for the Indonesian market —
will hit shelves from May 15 with a price tag of Rp 2,199,000 ($191).
When asked
how many units he wanted to see sold in Indonesia, Chen said: “I hope to sell
lots … but more importantly I want to focus more on market share. I want to
increase our market share.”
The Z3 is
the first device introduced by BlackBerry under Chen’s leadership.
Jakarta
will be the first city to offer the device to consumers before it gets rolled
out to other locations.
“Why did I
pick Jakarta first? It’s my recognition and my statement that Indonesian
consumers are very important for us. In Jakarta, we have lots of customers, in
Indonesia we have lots of customers,” said Chen, who took over the helm at the
embattled company late last year.
BlackBerry
products were at the height of their popularity in Indonesia about three to four
years ago in a country once dubbed a “BlackBerry nation.”
Data from
the technology research firm, the International Data Corporation (IDC), shows
that BlackBerry had a 43 percent market share of the nascent smartphone market
in 2011.
However,
cut-throat competition has seen its market share decline since then, and its
dominance has been eroded by smartphones from brands that use Google’s Android
operating system.
According
to IDC data, BlackBerry’s market share had declined to 14 percent globally by
last year, while that of Android-based phones, including South Korea’s Samsung,
had increased to 81 percent.
“We want to
go back to [a market share of] around 40 percent. I had a conversation with one
of our major distributors today and we both agreed that we should aim at that …
by going back to what he said were the good old days,” Chen said.
“It will
take us a while for sure, but the first thing we have to reverse is the losing
trend,” said the executive who previously served as the chief executive and
president of Sybase, a California-based independent software vendor.
He said
Jakarta would be the testing ground on how well consumers receive a smartphone
priced at under $200.
“We have
been losing market share in the last two years and obviously I would like to
turn that corner. If I can turn that corner I would view that as successful,”
he said.
The
BlackBerry Z3 is the first product by FIH Mobile, a subsidiary of Foxconn
Technology Group, an electronics contract manufacturing company based in
Taiwan, which also assembles gadgets for other manufacturers, including iPhones
and iPads for Apple.
The chief
at the Waterloo, Ontario-based company voiced optimism that the introduction of
a new device aimed at the low-end market, followed by other innovations can
help it to improve its financial performance.
BlackBerry
posted a loss of $423 million in the first three months of this year, compared
with a $4.4 billion loss in the previous quarter.
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