It’s no secret that BlackBerry is no longer a force to be reckoned with in the smartphone market. It has bled market share over the past decade so much so that it’s now on the brink of extinction. The company had placed great faith in its first Android-powered handset, the BlackBerry Priv, but even it doesn’t appear to have done much to improve its fortunes. A new report suggests that the Priv hasn’t been doing as well as previously imagined.
CNET reports citing a “high-level” AT&T executive that the BlackBerry Priv is “really struggling,” and that the rate of return has been quite high. “We’ve seen more returns than we would like” the unnamed executive adds.
It’s further revealed in the report that while it was initially believed that an Android-powered handset would entice more users to switch to BlackBerry, most of the customers who did pick one up were BlackBerry loyalists, used to the company’s own operating system, and thus they couldn’t quite make the transition to Android. This is what’s behind the high rate of return, according to the executive.
BlackBerry has not yet commented on this report, but it doesn’t paint the company’s ailing hardware business in a flattering light. There has been talk about the company’s hardware business being shut down for good, with CEO John Chen himself saying that he will shut down the hardware business if it fails to turn a profit soon.
Filed in . Read more about AT&T, BlackBerry and Blackberry Priv.
