BLACKBERRY KEY 2: WHERE IS THE KEY???

If you are unaware about Blackberry's comeback, here is a quick info-

After vanishing into thin air due to stiff competition from Android and iOS, Blackberry came to life when it entered into long-term brand licensing agreement with TCL Corporation and Optiemus Infracom. According to this hardware licensing partnership, Optiemus Infracom holds the right to produce Blackberry-branded smartphones in India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Nepal and Sri Lanka while TCL everywhere outside these nations.

Blackberry KeyOne release in early 2017 followed by Key2 in mid 2018 laid the foundation for comeback of Blackberry mobiles.

Source:- https://blackberrymobile.com/storage/2018/03/03-1.jpg

I grew up in years during which phones got from being big and practically non-portable to small, everyday and everywhere devices. This post is written by a guy who never got a chance to own and use a blackberry mobile phone until December of 2014. This was mainly due to two very practical reasons - first me being underage for phone usage during blackberry phone's glory days (yes this was a thing back then, now we have toddlers handling smartphones like a pro) and second one is somewhat even valid till nowadays i.e. their affordability.

Talking about pricing and affordability, BB KeyOne came with launch-price tag of $549 and Key2 with an increment of $100 to the previous one. Well at-first pricing seems to be kind of okay, considering the fact that both of these are blackberry's flagship devices, and even more when we have Samsung and Apple breaking $1000 price ceiling with their latest flagship pricing. Until you look at specs-sheet, which looks like that of a mid-grade phone rather than a flagship device and totally unacceptable for launch price tag of phone. We have devices with same internal hardware specifications, costing less than half the price.

Well at this point, one might argue that Blackberry has always been a software company with security at it's core values and has been providing those services with in-built features in their phones. So aren't they charging premium price for those services which make Key2 the most secure Android device available for masses to purchase. Yes, this can certainly be one of the explanations.

Blackberry's target consumers consist of people who really need high level of security provided by their devices and a small group of rich nostalgic tech-savvy people. This is the case because all other people not listed above are far better-off buying some other phone in same price segment like that of Oneplus.

Considering the fact that people who sincerely require that high end level of security are the one that can carry only one device and are rich enough to spend on security (top-officials). These people are generally willing to have excellent end user-experience, which is lacking in both KeyOne and Key2.

Blackberry can take advantage of it's unique position of being one of the very few companies to cater to such an audience, especially in Android domain. They can provide better overall experience by having the best in class hardware available in their upcoming devices and launch them with even a higher price-tag than it's predecessors.         

Increasing the launch price, can deter other people to make a purchase. This situation can be handled by having a more affordable option, which Blackberry tried to do by having another model named Key2 LE. With lower price-tag of $400, Blackberry Key2 LE still can't be called an affordable and certainly not a value-for-money option in emerging markets like India, where there are phones with excellent price to performance ratio in $200-$300 price range.

When Blackberry was in it's glory days, people did not buy blackberry just because of baked-in high level security features but due to simple fact that a blackberry phone was host of very well implemented smart features found during those days (especially that tactile physical keyboard and BBM). Unless Blackberry comes out with a compelling option, people will find it hard to buy and recommend a blackberry. While Blackberry's USP (unique selling point) i.e. in-built security features might not be as desirable among audience as compared to other brands. Blackberry can still make a comeback with offerings that are justifiable for their launch price.