OTTAWA: Research in Motion's chief executives, Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, frightened investors on Thursday when they said the company would not have new BlackBerry phones until late in 2012. Until then, they said, RIM would heavily promote the existing lineup.
The reaction was swift and sharp. The stock fell to an eight-year low Friday. One reason for the worry, analysts say, is that no amount of advertising will help increase the sales of BlackBerrys in the United States because the current line is a jumble of models. There are BlackBerrys that flip, BlackBerrys that slide, BlackBerrys with touch screens, BlackBerrys with touch screens and keyboards, BlackBerrys with full keyboards, BlackBerrys with compact keyboards, high-end BlackBerrys and low-priced models.
Features have proliferated on BlackBerrys as part of RIM's move to the broader consumer market, and so have the number of models. Since 2007, RIM has introduced 37 models. The company, in a statement, said it did not know how many models were on the market.
Adding to the shopping confusion are RIM's product names, which generally rely on four-digit model numbers and sometimes have different products sharing a name. The BlackBerry Torch 9850 and 9860 are touch-screen phones that are on some shelves next to the BlackBerry Torch 9800 and 9810, touch-screen phones with slide-out keyboards. (The model number differences reflect models adapted for different cellphone systems.)
By contrast, Apple has introduced only four iPhones since 2008 and all were basically the same phone with differences in the amount of storage, or upgrades from older models.
Shaw Wu, an analyst with Sterne Agee in San Francisco, said that even though he closely followed the company as part of his job, he was unable to keep the various BlackBerry models straight at times. "The company may not see this, but its product line is still too complicated," Wu said. "They have all these different models, all these different model numbers and nobody knows what anything is. Apple's a much bigger company, but they've made it simple for people."
Model proliferation and fragmentation is nothing new in the wireless business. Nokia offered a wide range of cellphones tailored to appeal to specific, sometimes comparatively small, groups of buyers. And several companies, notably Samsung, also offer an array of phones.
But in the era of more sophisticated smartphones when many shoppers are already baffled by choices between operating systems and software features, some analysts and marketing experts say that RIM is only confusing consumers, rather than increasing sales, with its array of handsets.
The extensive product line has not reversed RIM's declining market share in North America. Canalys, a market research firm based in London, estimates that BlackBerrys accounted for only 9 percent of the U.S. market in the third quarter of this year. At the end of 2009, it held almost half the market.
RIM's variety of BlackBerry models present it with an additional problem that could also make a comeback less likely. The different keyboards, screen sizes and screen types used by RIM make it more time-consuming and difficult to create and test BlackBerry apps. Without a lot of apps, consumers see the phones as less useful than an Apple or Android phone.
The reaction was swift and sharp. The stock fell to an eight-year low Friday. One reason for the worry, analysts say, is that no amount of advertising will help increase the sales of BlackBerrys in the United States because the current line is a jumble of models. There are BlackBerrys that flip, BlackBerrys that slide, BlackBerrys with touch screens, BlackBerrys with touch screens and keyboards, BlackBerrys with full keyboards, BlackBerrys with compact keyboards, high-end BlackBerrys and low-priced models.
Features have proliferated on BlackBerrys as part of RIM's move to the broader consumer market, and so have the number of models. Since 2007, RIM has introduced 37 models. The company, in a statement, said it did not know how many models were on the market.
Adding to the shopping confusion are RIM's product names, which generally rely on four-digit model numbers and sometimes have different products sharing a name. The BlackBerry Torch 9850 and 9860 are touch-screen phones that are on some shelves next to the BlackBerry Torch 9800 and 9810, touch-screen phones with slide-out keyboards. (The model number differences reflect models adapted for different cellphone systems.)
By contrast, Apple has introduced only four iPhones since 2008 and all were basically the same phone with differences in the amount of storage, or upgrades from older models.
Shaw Wu, an analyst with Sterne Agee in San Francisco, said that even though he closely followed the company as part of his job, he was unable to keep the various BlackBerry models straight at times. "The company may not see this, but its product line is still too complicated," Wu said. "They have all these different models, all these different model numbers and nobody knows what anything is. Apple's a much bigger company, but they've made it simple for people."
Model proliferation and fragmentation is nothing new in the wireless business. Nokia offered a wide range of cellphones tailored to appeal to specific, sometimes comparatively small, groups of buyers. And several companies, notably Samsung, also offer an array of phones.
But in the era of more sophisticated smartphones when many shoppers are already baffled by choices between operating systems and software features, some analysts and marketing experts say that RIM is only confusing consumers, rather than increasing sales, with its array of handsets.
The extensive product line has not reversed RIM's declining market share in North America. Canalys, a market research firm based in London, estimates that BlackBerrys accounted for only 9 percent of the U.S. market in the third quarter of this year. At the end of 2009, it held almost half the market.
RIM's variety of BlackBerry models present it with an additional problem that could also make a comeback less likely. The different keyboards, screen sizes and screen types used by RIM make it more time-consuming and difficult to create and test BlackBerry apps. Without a lot of apps, consumers see the phones as less useful than an Apple or Android phone.
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