BlackBerry's Rise and Fall: A Case Study

This assignment examines the decline of BlackBerry's market share in the smartphone industry, comparing it to successful brands like Apple and Samsung. Students will analyze various factors leading to BlackBerry's downfall, including technological advancements, design limitations, and changing consumer preferences. The analysis will draw upon case studies, industry reports, and financial data to provide a comprehensive understanding of BlackBerry's trajectory.

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Executive Summary
The purpose of this report is to understand the case study of BlackBerry and its declining market
share. BlackBerry was once the renowned name in the electronic and mobile industry but soon
its name and identity vanished from the market because of a number of factors as discussed in
report. The report will also highlight the lost market capitalization of Blackberry and gained
market capitalization of Apple and Samsung. The report will end with a brief conclusion with an
overall analysis and evaluation.

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Contents
Overview of BlackBerry..................................................................................................................3
Issue of Interest................................................................................................................................3
Why has BlackBerry lost customers?..........................................................................................4
Is BlackBerry ready for demand and supply in trending-apps / trending-software technology? 4
How much Market Capitalization did BlackBerry lost in past 5years?.......................................6
How much Market Capitalization did Samsung and Apple won in past 5years?........................7
Conclusion and Recommendations..................................................................................................8
References......................................................................................................................................10

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Overview of BlackBerry
BlackBerry Limited was established in the year 1984 by the huge efforts of Mike Lazaridis and
Douglas Fregin. The company was formerly known as “Research In Motion”. It is a Canadian
MNC which is recognized for its specialization in the Internet of Things and enterprise software.
The company was the leading name in the technology industry because of its smart phones and
tablets. There are diverse products of Blackberry in its product portfolio that comprises of QNX,
BlackBerry Internet Service, BlackBerry Enterprise Service and BlackBerry Messenger. The key
era of success of BlackBerry was the period from 1984 to 2001 (Savov, 2016). In this time
frame, the company acquired a huge customer base and has attained a strong market share with a
leading position in the software industry. In the phase of 2001 to 2011, BlackBerry has
experienced global expansion have faced a striving competition in the global market. In the
earlier phase, there was attained a huge recognition and growth in the overseas market but later
to this a number of android system came into existence that have fetched the attention of the
customers. And thus the market and existence of BlackBerry started declining (Youssef, 2013).
Issue of Interest
In the initial phase, BlackBerry was recognized as one of the most dominant and prominent
smartphone seller in the world, having specialization in mobile productivity and secures
communication. The peak phase of the success of BlackBerry was in September 2013 when there
were approx a total of 85 million subscribers of BlackBerry across the world. But since that time,
the company started losing its dominant position as well as its customers because of the iOS and
the android platforms. And in the year 2016, it was realized that the overall BlackBerry
subscribers were reduced to 23 million. Such a massive decline in the number of customers
posed a huge threat on the existence of the company (Youssef, 2013). In the modernized and
techno savvy world, there was a huge loss of market capitalization of BlackBerry and to regain
the share and the capitalization, there were taken several initiatives by the company but because

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of the existence of various other competitors and continuously attaining success by them also
imposed several negative implications if the sustainability of BlackBerry as it was extremely
difficult to fetch the attention of the customers and make them switch to BlackBerry from other
recognized brands.
Why has BlackBerry lost customers?
There were several reasons because of which BlackBerry lost its customers. Lout of those
following were the primary reasons of losing a strong customer base:
 BlackBerry was very slow to react to the market modifications and changes as it was
gaining interest of the customers with its small Qwerty keyboards but once Apple and
other android made available the technology of touch screen, soon people get
comfortable with it. But BlackBerry didn’t realize and thus keep going with the small
Qwerty keyboards and lost a huge market share (Youssef, 2013).
 In comparison with the other Androids, it was found that the designs and the names of
BlackBerry products were bad and bizarre. And this also appeared as one of the big
reason behind losing the customers as the people started demanding sleek and smart
designed phones. On the other hand Apple and other Android phones were available in
innovative designs which were seeking the attention of the masses (Haslam, et al., 2013).
 The primary sector where BlackBerry had its leading position was corporate sector. But
suddenly the company faced a corporate slowdown as there was a network problems
faced by a number of corporate organisation in the BlackBerry handsets and network
which results in a huge decline in the market share.
 The most dominant factor behind decline or loss in the customers of BlackBerry was the
success and explosion of Apple and Androids. Once these came into existence, the
customers switched to these androids and Apple and started losing interest in the products
of BlackBerry (Chang, Kim and Joo, 2013).
Is BlackBerry ready for demand and supply in trending-apps / trending-software
technology?
From the overall, analysis and current market situation, it has been identified that BlackBerry is
trying to adopt the technologies which can serve the demand of the customers for the trending

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applications and software technologies. For this, BlackBerry has announced the launch of its new
and innovative KEYone phone as well as has also focused on new security and designing of the
mobile phones. But still, there are number of reasons which claim that BlackBerry is still not
ready for the demand and supply in trending-apps / trending-software technology (Youssef,
2013).In comparison with other competitors and market players, Blackberry still have a number
of loopholes which results in unwillingness of the customers to switch to BlackBerry products
instead of Androids and Apple. In terms of technology, the software updates by Apple cannot be
compared by BlackBerry as the software used is comparatively of high technology and
BlackBerry cannot give a competition to the technology and customer base of these Androids as
well as Apple (Youssef, 2013). In present time, there is an extensive demand as well as supply of
the applications and software technologies by the customers which are updated and are
innovative. Since there is a need of extensive market research as well as offering much more
enhanced technological products to the customers for achieving the customer base once again
(Acid, 2016).

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How much Market Capitalization did BlackBerry lost in past 5years?
(Source: Forbes, 2015)
In the past five years i.e. from the year 2011 to 2016, there has been a sudden decline in the
market share of BlackBerry which has resulted in extreme loss of market capitalization by the
company. The data shown in the graph depicts that the peak phase of success of BlackBerry was
in the year 2011 when it had a sales or revenue of a total of 19,907 US million dollar which
declines to 3,335 US million dollars. The company has faced around a total of 16,000 US million
dollars loss in the market capitalization which shaken the roots of BlackBerry. According to
Gartner, a research firm, it was identified that the BlackBerry smart phone platform has been fell
down to 0.0 percent market share in the phase of fourth quarter of 2016 and this research was
accomplished by taking into roughly 200,000 global device sales (Frommer, 2017). S when the
company do not stand for any market share in the past few months, it was analyzed that the

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existence of the company has been lost with its market capitalization. The phase of past five
years were the decline phase in the life of BlackBerry where it lost its maximum market share
and the market capitalization and came to an end in almost all the international markets. Thus, it
can be stated that in the past five years were the lost phase for BlackBerry where there was huge
loss of the customer bases and the revenues (Sharma, 2011).
How much Market Capitalization did Samsung and Apple won in past 5years?
With the loss of the market capitalization of Blackberry, there were two key market leaders that
attained huge market share, market capitalization and revenues named Apple and Samsung.
(Source: Macrotrends, 2017)
Apple is considered as the most innovative and highest quality software developing companies
that take use of updated and innovative technologies in its products with quality designs. In the
past five years the company has grown from around 210 billion dollars to a total of
approximately 750 billion dollar. It shows a huge and massive gain of market share and revenues
as well as strong customer base by Apple in the past five years (Johnson, et al., 2012).

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(Source: Edwards, 2016)
The one of the market leader and the most successful companies in the electronic industry is
Samsung which had been the most benefited company with the decline of Blackberry. Samsung
is considered as one of the largest serving company across the globe and had gained extreme
operating profits, customer base and market share. Samsung holds a total of 26.1 percent of the
overall market share across the world with its fastest selling mobile phones and other products to
huge masses worldwide (Chen and Ann, 2016).
In comparison with Samsung Apple holds a total of 16.9 percent of the market share from the
global perspective. But both these companies have taken advantage of the slowdown of
BlackBerry as well as by identifying the need of change and serving the masses with innovative
and fresh technology based products (Dissanayake and Amarasuriya, 2015).
Conclusion and Recommendations
From this report, it can be concluded that in the business society, it is essential to understand the
needs and requirements of the changing consumer market as well as to have in-depth knowledge
of the innovative technologies. In case of Blackberry, the company lost its leadership, the market
share, customer base and huge market capitalization because of arioso factors and has faced a

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number of challenges. But from the insights of the report, it can also analyzed and concluded that
the companies who have taken initiatives to understand the market and take sue of updated
technologies like Samsung and Apple have gained huge market share and are leading the
markets. Thus, it can be recommended that ever organisation needs to identify the market threats
and opportunities and develop strategies accordingly to achieve long term sustainability.

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References
Acid, 2016. BLACKBERRY LIMITED1. Accessed on: 21st October, 2017. Accessed from:
http://www.accid.org/centraldecasos/downloads/case-blackberry-2016formatvcas.pdf
Chang, Y., Kim, J. and Joo, J., 2013. An Exploratory Study on the Evolution of Design
Thinking: Comparison of Apple and Samsung. Design Management Journal, 8(1), pp.22-34.
Chen, C.M. and Ann, B.Y., 2016. Efficiencies vs. importance-performance analysis for the
leading smartphone brands of Apple, Samsung and HTC. Total Quality Management & Business
Excellence, 27(3-4), pp.227-249.
Dissanayake, D.M.R. and Amarasuriya, T., 2015. Role of brand identity in developing global
brands: A literature based review on case comparison between Apple iPhone vs Samsung
smartphone brands.
Edwards, J., 2016. Even when Samsung gets it right Apple still kicks its butt. Accessed on: 21 st
October, 2017. Accessed from: http://www.businessinsider.in/Even-when-Samsung-gets-it-right-
Apple-still-kicks-its-butt/articleshow/49610155.cms
Forbes, 2015. BlackBerry's Famous Last Words At 2007 iPhone Launch: 'We'll Be Fine'.
Accessed on: 21st October, 2017. Accessed from:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2015/05/26/blackberry-iphone-book/#72323c5663c9
Frommer, D., 2017. Chart of the day: The BlackBerry’s fall to 0.0 percent market share.
Accessed on: 21st October, 2017. Accessed from:
https://www.recode.net/2017/2/26/14742598/blackberry-sales-market-share-chart
Haslam, C., Tsitsianis, N., Andersson, T. and Yin, Y.P., 2013, December. Apple's financial
success: The precariousness of power exercised in global value chains. In Accounting
Forum (Vol. 37, No. 4, pp. 268-279). Elsevier.
Johnson, K., Li, Y., Phan, H., Singer, J. and Trinh, H., 2012. The Innovative Success that is
Apple, Inc.

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Macrotrends, 2017. Apple Market Cap History (AAPL). Accessed on: 21st October, 2017.
Accessed from: http://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AAPL/market-cap/apple-inc-market-
cap-history
Savov, V., 2016. BlackBerry's success led to its failure. Accessed on: 21st October, 2017.
Accessed from: https://www.theverge.com/2016/9/30/13119924/blackberry-failure-success
Sharma, K., 2011. Android: possibilities are endless. International Journal of Advanced
Research in Computer Science, 2(1).
Youssef, M.H., 2013. Strategic tensions within the smartphones industry: the case of
BlackBerry. VISTAS: Education, Economy and Community, 3, pp.125-141.