T-Mobile has dropped the BlackBerry Priv from its website amid rumors of poor sales.
BlackBerry Priv
The Priv is the first offering by Blackberry using the Android operating system. The world had waited with anticipation for this new smartphone to hit the markets, landing in October 2015, but it appears it has not been as popular as analysts suggested.
T-Mobile, the large German telecommunications firm, which operates the third largest wireless network in the US, has confirmed, via a tweet, that it was not presently selling the BlackBerry Priv.
In response to a customer enquiry about not being able to see the device on the website, and whether they still sold the device, the company responded, “Not currently! But you can check out our other phones here…”
Does not currently mean this is just a temporary situation, or has the phone ben pulled for good? T-Mobile only started carrying the phone at the beginning of the year and it is thought that things are not going well.
Poor Sales
Although there is no further information available currently as to why the smartphone has been withdrawn, we can speculate that is it related to poor sales.
An unnamed AT&T executive recently stated that the BlackBerry Priv “is really struggling” and continued that “we’ve seen more returns than we would like.”
The high number of returns is likely a result of traditional BlackBerry enthusiasts struggling to come to terms with the new Android operating system.
The price has been considered a problem for some time. The Priv cost a whopping $700, and although the curved screen and rollout keyboard make it an attractive piece of hardware, it is not keeping the faithful happy. The high end of the market is dominated by Apple and Samsung, and BlackBerry have found it hard to elbow their way into this lucrative space.
Future for BlackBerry
CEO, John Chen, said in October last year, that if it didn’t make a profit in their phone business in 2016, they would exit the phone world altogether. Chen has said that the Waterloo based company expect to launch a further device this year, again on Android, though that is expected to be more a mid-range product.
For the sake of their survival, this product really needs to score a home run or we may see the end of BlackBerry smartphones on a far bigger scale than just T-Mobile.
