Privacy-Focused Blackphone Isn’t Doing As Well As Expected

Privacy these days are a huge deal and as we have seen in the past, changes companies make to privacy policies, even the slightest rewording, can cause a huge uproar. This has since led to companies like Silent Circle who have created handsets like the Blackphone where privacy and security are the highlights of the phone.

In a world where we prioritize privacy, you’d think the handset would be a hit, but it turns out it is anything but. A report from Forbes has revealed that privacy-focused handsets aren’t doing as well as we had expected, and that companies like Silent Circle had grossly overestimated the demand for their handsets.

While we suppose demand from consumers can be quite a wild card at times, Silent Circle had initially assumed that demand would be huge largely thanks to enterprises that had expressed interest in purchasing tens of thousands of units. This led to the company borrowing cash to fund a production run of 250,000 units, only to have companies pull out at the last minute, or companies buying a fraction of what they had initially planned.

We suppose one could argue that maybe the phone was too niche and at the end of the day, people wanted more from their devices than just privacy, but what do you guys think? Are you surprised to learn of the Blackphone’s situation?

Tyler Lee
Categories: Cellphones
Tags: Privacy, Security