Why not Blakberry in Russia. Inside view
Introduction
Having written about the fact that Blackberry is not in Russia, I, of course, “have turned my heart.” There is no doubt that since the company Research In Motion (RIM, the copyright owner of the Blackberry trademark) came to Russia in 2008, many have already learned that blackberry is not only blackberry, but also smart, and also very fashionable. a smartphone, plus a service of the same name that makes these smartphones unique, and blackberry services in demand all over the world, especially among corporate clients. So why, with high sales in the United States, as well as about the same global share (almost 15% each for 2010), Blackberry and Apple differ in Russia several times (less than 1% and 15.06%), which is similar to global trend? Why does a service that has conquered the entire corporate world feel so uncomfortable in Russia?
The aggregate base of two operators providing this service (MTS and Beeline) is about 60,000 subscribers. While the world has millions of them, the United States has about 26% of the 46 million army of users, or about 12 million subscribers (as of 2010). Even the US president could not part with his beloved blackberry 8700. What prevents Russia as one of the leading powers in the world, preaching technological breakthrough and modernization, to be on the edge of telecommunications technology? Namely, we will try to analyze this phenomenon in this article, based on facts and current reality, taking into account global trends in the development of mobile platforms and the production of smartphones.
The main reasons, in my opinion, were a few very significant factors:
Competitors.
In the 1st quarter of 2011, blackberry os as a platform gave way to the world championship android. But it is on a global scale. In Russia, a completely different situation.
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Having created the most effective global “ecosystem”, and not hindering “gray” imports, as well as controlling only one (!) Actual Iphone phone model, Apple (the most significant competitor of Blackberry) took the leading position in the smartphone market in the highest price category. The consumer world has changed, and Apple was one of the first to feel this: without a final connection with the customer, it is impossible to achieve large-scale sales.
Competitor # 2 is Android, and this opponent is more serious. Here, the competitor is not the only company, even though the world leader, with a single phone model! Android is a mobile platform released by the all-powerful Google, and supported by the most powerful "players" in the market of smartphone makers in the world: HTC (High Tech Computer Corporation), Samsung, Motorola, even Nokia "glances" towards Google, although they recently concluded a strategic alliance with Microsoft. The motivation of manufacturers to use Android is the "victorious" march of Google to conquer search engines and additional services in the world's largest markets, and Russia is far from being an exception in this market.
In Russia, Blackberry is burdened by law, and the devices are imported as encryption tools with the appropriate “bouquet” of bureaucratic procedures, which greatly affects the logistics and the price of the final device.
The official functionality is severely limited by the regulator, in this case, the Federal Security Service, one of the most popular services in the world, Blackberry Messenger, has been turned off, as well as becoming the de-facto one of the most important high-speed data transmission standards WI FI.
All data transmission by corporate users is also controlled by the regulator.
Apparently, due to the prevailing reasons, and also not the healthiest economic situation in Russia - low GDP per capita, monocentricity (population concentration in several major cities), poverty of the Russian population and underdevelopment of telecommunications in Russia (meaning broadband, Wimax, 3G, LTE, etc.), until recently, made our market unattractive for Research in Motion. We will try to touch upon all the aspects already mentioned in more detail and consider promising ways for the development of blackberry in Russia.
What is blackberry
BlackBerry is not just a smartphone, as the absolute majority of users think, but a whole technology that involves a set of services peculiar only to this solution:
These devices are produced by Canadian company RIM (Research In Motion), which began its ascent to the Olympus of technological domination since the mid-90s. Initially, the company positioned its product as a safe and secure solution for working with e-mail. The first devices did not have the function of voice data transmission and were designed exclusively for working with e-mail. Moreover, all the company's developments were directed exclusively to the corporate segment, i.e. to work with corporate e-mail and mail servers Microsoft Exchange, Novell or Lotus Domino. Subsequently, the company also reached the level of an ordinary user, providing the opportunity to work with public postal resources such as: mail.ru, yandex.ru or gmail.com. Today, anyone who lives in Europe or the United States can buy a BlackBerry device and take advantage of the entire arsenal of company services. Unfortunately, in Russia everything is completely different at the moment ... While in the USA and Europe the iPhone was squeezed out by the BlackBerry and in 2010 RIM was recognized as the most profitable and fast-growing company with a subscriber base of more than 36 million people, in Russia there are no more than a few tens of thousands, and even then, half of them use the BlackBerry as a simple communicator.
BlackBerry smartphones provide an opportunity to use a large number of communication services, transmission services and data access, as well as multimedia functions - that is, in one stylish device everything that the owner may need is concentrated.
BlackBerry devices, which are offered at the choice of the corporate client, meet the requirements of internal policies and standards of various categories of customers regarding the use of wireless communication by its employees and the allowed additional functions of user devices. BlackBerry devices support making phone calls, exchanging corporate email and instant messaging, browsing and organizing, and can also have built-in cameras and media players.
Concluding the brief excursion, we can say that the main modernization breakthrough of the Blackberry is to provide a person with another degree of freedom - not to be tied to the office, and at the same time remain in the workplace, while having only a “regular” smartphone in your pocket. its size does not exceed similar models from other manufacturers.
The situation in the market of mobile platforms and smartphones in the world
According to IDC analytical agency, for the entire 2010, 302.6 million units were shipped to the global smartphone market. Moreover, the largest number falls on the fourth quarter (100.9 million, which is 87.2% more than in the same period a year ago).
First place in terms of supply is Nokia (100.3 million devices). The top five manufacturers also included RIM (Research In Motion), Apple, Samsung and HTC.
RIM, which occupies the second place of honor, released a record number of smartphones for the 2010-2011 fiscal year, its deliveries reached 52.3 million units, which is 43% more compared to the previous year. Revenue for the year ended February 26, 2011, grew by 33% to $ 19.9 billion, compared with $ 15.0 billion in the 2009–2010 fiscal year. Profit rose 47% to $ 3.4 billion. Cash and cash equivalents as of February 26 totaled $ 2.7 billion, an increase of $ 227 million over the past 3 months.
As for the situation on the market of operating systems for smartphones, here, according to IDC (for 2010), the following alignment of forces is observed:
The Google Android platform continues to grow at a steady pace, becoming the engine of the market. Its success is ensured by such world-famous companies as HTC, LG, Motorola Mobility, Samsung, which produce devices on the Android OS.
On the contrary, the Symbian operating system currently only supports Nokia. However, according to rumors, and she may abandon Symbian in favor of the competing platform Windows Phone 7 or all the same Android.
The performance of the “newbie” - Windows Phone 7, which entered the market in the fall of 2010, is relatively small: in about two months the shipping volume is about 1.5 million WP7 devices.
The shares that occupy in the global smartphone market of the company Research In Motion (manufacturer of BlackBerry) and Apple, promoting their own mobile operating systems, are 16.1% and 15.7%, respectively.
Smartphone market in Russia
According to the results of the study of the Russian smartphone market by the analytical group SmartMarketing, sales in 2010 amounted to 1,319 thousand units (50.45% of the market for WID-class devices and smartphones together). For the first time, the smartphone market has almost reached the level of the WID class device market by this indicator.
Fluctuations of the quarterly dynamics remained insignificant, the share of smartphones accounted for 64.66% in the first quarter of 2010, 55.03% in the second quarter of 2010, 49.84% in the third quarter of 2010, 43.96% in the fourth quarter 2010, continuing the positive trend for WID, celebrated since Q3 2009 (see Appendix 2)
It should be noted that the main engine of this process was systemic restructuring of the market structure due to the growing demand for information services and intellectual services from the mass consumer, price ranges that occurred as a result of the emergence of new platforms and the increased activity of a number of vendors previously invisible in the market. Following the results of 2010, the top five leaders of the market for WID and smartphones in general are: Nokia (50.32%), Samsung (10.89%), HTC (10.68%), Apple (7.46%), Sony Ericsson (6.69%).
Significant dynamics is observed in the market of platforms. In general, Symbian maintains the leading position, accounting for 54.53% at the end of the year (including smartphones and WID based on it), Android ranked second (22.48%), Windows Mobile ranked third (11.94% ), further iOS (7.46%), Bada (2.45%), etc.
If we consider only WID devices as more technological and more relevant from the point of view of the development of mass non-voice services, we get the following: the leading position in 2010 was held by the Android platform (45.4% in the WID segment), then Windows Mobile (24.1 %), iOS (15.1%), Symbian (8.2%), Bada (4.9%) and BlackBerry OS (1.6%), the share of other platforms (HTC Smart, Maemo, Palm / HP webOS and etc. - less than 1%).
According to SmartMarketing, a decisive role in the further development of the mobile device market in 2011 will be played by an increasing price struggle, both in its direct forms and manifested indirectly (sponsoring tariffs, smartphone branding, etc.).
The price erosion according to SmartMarketing estimates for 2010 averaged 16-20%, and for individual segments the figures are even higher. However, in the future it is possible that this trend will intensify, forcing manufacturing companies to continue to increase production speed.
The trend of “branding” with a high probability may lead to a redefinition of the market price structure and cheaper WID and smartphones in general. That is, Blackberry will have, including indirect methods, to strengthen its presence in the Russian market, so if Blackberry and Apple keep parity in the US market, then the share in Russia will differ by an order of magnitude.
The reasons that hinder the development of Blackberry in Russia
Legislation
The Federal Security Service issued MTS and VimpelCom permission to permanently import Blackberry smartphones into Russia only in 2008. Until that time, since RIM disagreed with the requirements for reducing the encryption key and using SORM equipment when providing Blackberry services, legal import of smartphones was prohibited and This service was not provided. This circumstance did not allow the Canadian company to enter the smartphone market in Russia in time. By 2008, the market was already not only divided, but also saturated with various devices from Nokia, Samsung, Sony Erricsson, moreover, by this time, the main competitor of Blackberry - Apple, had “marched victoriously” across the market for more than half a year.
The requirements of the federal law “On Communications” and orders of the Ministry of Communications and Telecommunications also oblige operators to decrypt transmitted information if additional coding is performed, and in the Blackberry service and smartphones this is one of the main competitive advantages, because RIM is the world’s leading cryptographic company de facto in the US state standard.
Therefore, cellular operators providing this service (in this case, MTS and Beeline) and corporate customers using the Blackberry Enterprise Server service have to pay for the installation of SORM equipment for their unhindered access of special services to subscriber data at their own expense. That puts the service itself in a very controversial position. On the one hand, high data security, tested and supported worldwide at a very reasonable cost, since the supplied solution is, firstly, holistic, and secondly, it makes it possible to reduce the price, subject to the millions of sales that we see all over the world. On the other hand, in Russia, the regulator even under the condition of work on request (that is, tracking data selectively) and the lack of total control of data, has the ability to control the system de facto and de jure. Plus to this circumstance, the developers of SORM equipment, which all customers, whether the end customer or telecom operator, have to buy, due to their monopoly state position, set such prices for their equipment that the blackberry service turns into a very “expensive toy”. In addition to the basic cost, the cost of implementation also rises due to the complexity of the entire data transmission system. RIM does not develop its products according to the requirements of each specific special service.
Competitors
Blackberry is often compared to Apple and quite reasonably: both companies have their own mobile platforms, they themselves produce mobile devices, unlike Google. What gives them the ability to extremely quickly and efficiently form “ecosystems”, which at the moment are rightfully called among the best on the planet. That is, in expressions, so beloved by Russian economic officials, they are vertically integrated corporations, such as “Gazprom” in the field of telecommunications and digital technology.
That, in turn, bears on itself and the prints of technological deficiencies that these systems have:
Apple vs Blackberry Ecosystem
Steve Jobs - a recognized computer guru brought once "stagnating" computer assembly company, he also created, but left for a long time, the leaders of the global IT industry.
Apple, having overtaken Microsoft by capitalization, presented the world with a new level of industrial and computer design, software ergonomics and, as a result, the most efficient and monetized ecosystem. As of January 2011, in the appstore - the largest online application supermarket - there were more than 300 thousand different programs for the iPhone and more than 40 thousand applications for the iPad tablet. On January 24, 2011, the milestone of 10 billion downloads of the application was reached. The Android market boasts 150,000 applications, but the growth of applications for android is far ahead of the growth of applications for apple. In the blackberry app world at the moment there are no more than 20,000 applications.
Plus, Apple has become a trendsetter and a pioneer in the tablet computer market, putting an ipad on the market in more than 15 million units in just one and a half years. March 11 started selling Ipad2, for which lined up the queue. Blackberry Playbook, which according to RIM was supposed to be a worthy answer. Ipad is released only on April 19, 2011, which is more than a month later the second version of Jobs' tablet. The company for too long announced various versions and modifications of the Playbook, which led to the fact that the ipad only strengthened its presence in the market.
AndroidHTC and Samsung
On March 24, Researchin Motion released a press release, according to which Android applications will work on the playbook ... it sounded almost like surrender if we consider the strategic development path. The Android application market has grown three times in a year in nine months, besides Android applications are either free or their cost is 30-40% cheaper than similar applications in Blackberry App World. HTC is also working on Google, whose new models mainly come with Android support. Korean chaebol LG and Samsung continuously release new models. Samsung Galaxy Tab (tablet) sold around the world for the first month of sales of millions of copies. Their cumulative share in our market is more than 48%, if 15% of Apple and 8% of Nokia are removed from here, there will not be much space ... The speed of release of new models of Korean giants and HTC is amazing. Android is developing “by leaps and bounds”, and Google is bringing to the market more and more new services and buying up successful technological startups.
Vendor conservatism
The strength of the brand, which still allows Blackberry to sell millions of devices around the world, still does not allow to look into the future with unconditional optimism. Sometimes companies overestimate their strength, so, apparently, it was when Blackberry entered the Russian market. We see the efforts with which RIM brings its first tablet to the market, and at the same time it provides for the convergence of its platform from Android to the Playbook. It speaks more about Google's winnings, as it is now easier for Blackberry developers to write an Android application and rely on a wider audience.
Another disturbing trend has been the shift in demand for BlackBerry devices manufactured by RIM to the low-end side. Sales are growing mainly due to cheap models, while the expensive ones remain low in demand. This is not surprising: the RIM operating system is morally obsolete, there is little software for it, and it takes advantage of expensive hardware to work with. Obviously, the company is moving by inertia, due to its huge share of the world market, but this situation is not in Russia, here the market share of Blackberry is small, in official developers only Aion is listed.
Moreover, if Apple controls the price of an iphone worldwide, then the prices of gray and white phones may differ significantly. A striking example of this, the new Blackberry 9800, on which RIM made a bet, is sold from the exclusive supplier of this model to the Russian market VimpelCom (Beeline) for 29,900 rubles, then on the Internet you can find this device for 17,000 rubles, and services wi fi and blackberry messenger will be open, unlike the "white" phones.
Selling, like Apple, devices only through cellular operators, without having its own service center, the company puts itself in a very difficult position.
The main "trick" Blackberry is in the "ecosystem" - a smartphone, giving the opportunity to use a technologically advanced service. But in our country, with its tough legislation and technological backwardness, these devices simply will not be sold. As we already wrote: the service is “heavy”, the operating system for the most part requires modernization (it’s not a wonder that a new operating system will already be installed on the playbook), and competitors are increasing their advantage on the contrary. Cellular operators, who are called to sell the service together with the devices, in fact, are cumbersome bureaucratic structures and cannot adequately respond to the speed of market demands. Moreover, their main business remains the exploitation of cellular infrastructure, which does not bring additional incentives for the development of services.
The main ways and prospects of development
Blackberry is one of the most recognizable brands in the developed world, which has rightfully become the mobile corporate standard in the Old and New Worlds. Due to the fact that Blackberry as a brand exists on the Russian market relatively recently (2008), and the service to the mass segment - individuals began to be provided only in 2009, the majority of Russian consumers did not know about it.
Until 2011, one of the two cellular operators providing the Blackberry Enterprise Service (Server) service, VimpelCom OJSC (Beeline), could do this only in the two largest cities of Russia - Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Therefore, the main consumers of the Blackberry service were either foreign companies or multinational companies, including foreign ones, which are well acquainted with this service in foreign markets.
And, therefore, as it seems to us, it is worth bringing to the Russian market all those successful elements that enabled RIM to gain global popularity. No company in the world can boast of a holistic solution in the field of corporate business, ranging from integrating and maintaining the functions of the most popular mail servers such as Lotus Domino and Microsoft Exchange on mobile devices, providing secure and compressed mobile traffic, to providing the devices intended specifically to work with the service, that is, support encryption. At the same time, along with Apple, RIM is also a trendsetter in industrial design. Most corporate qwerty-keyboard smartphones are Blackberry followers as well as touch-screen models follow the Iphone tradition. But,like any solution, although convenient and breakthrough in every respect (any breakthrough solution is an innovation and innovation), it requires extremely strong support when entering the market. And in the conditions of the Russian legislation, and as a consequence of the further complication of the decision-making process, it should be even more demanding of service and support.
Even the notorious Blackberry Internet Service, which allows capturing the mass market and enables ordinary users, individuals, to get the Blackberry service, is implemented in our country with a fairly truncated functionality. There is a strange situation: operators selling services are forced to sell devices with “closed” wi fi and the absence of a blackberry messenger, one of the most popular Blackberry services.
“Gray” phones support these functions, and operators have to “close their eyes” to this circumstance.
Various SORM solutions for operators also do not bring clarity to the market, and consumers are forced to guess at what kind of service and how much they can get.
Standard support services, in principle, are not designed for technically complex decisions in view of the organizational scheme of call-centers built by operators.
One of the possible solutions to the problem of promoting Blackberry to the Russian market is the establishment and support of specialized companies that, using the RIM ideology, could provide a full service: from selling the device to connecting and configuring it. One such striking example is ServiceBerry, the official partner of RIM and VimpelCom, for the sale and support of Blackberry services in Russia. Taking the approach of the service provider company, Serviceberry (Serviceberry) provides a full range of services by providing the Hosted Blackberry Enterprise Server service and the Blackberry Internet Service, in which the client does not have to buy expensive equipment, maintain it, have a highly qualified staff. This provides the opportunity to receive the service at a reasonable price.Also, the sale of equipment and service support to end users provides the opportunity to completely cover all issues relating to the service. That is, in fact, it is a “manual” mechanism for managing an “ecosystem” in Russia, however, like any other management in our country.
Having written about the fact that Blackberry is not in Russia, I, of course, “have turned my heart.” There is no doubt that since the company Research In Motion (RIM, the copyright owner of the Blackberry trademark) came to Russia in 2008, many have already learned that blackberry is not only blackberry, but also smart, and also very fashionable. a smartphone, plus a service of the same name that makes these smartphones unique, and blackberry services in demand all over the world, especially among corporate clients. So why, with high sales in the United States, as well as about the same global share (almost 15% each for 2010), Blackberry and Apple differ in Russia several times (less than 1% and 15.06%), which is similar to global trend? Why does a service that has conquered the entire corporate world feel so uncomfortable in Russia?
The aggregate base of two operators providing this service (MTS and Beeline) is about 60,000 subscribers. While the world has millions of them, the United States has about 26% of the 46 million army of users, or about 12 million subscribers (as of 2010). Even the US president could not part with his beloved blackberry 8700. What prevents Russia as one of the leading powers in the world, preaching technological breakthrough and modernization, to be on the edge of telecommunications technology? Namely, we will try to analyze this phenomenon in this article, based on facts and current reality, taking into account global trends in the development of mobile platforms and the production of smartphones.
The main reasons, in my opinion, were a few very significant factors:
- competitors, namely the competition of mobile platforms in the world and operations of competitors in the Russian market,
- features of the Russian economy and legislation
- attitude of the vendor (legal or natural person who is a supplier of goods and services united by a trademark) to the Russian market.
Competitors.
In the 1st quarter of 2011, blackberry os as a platform gave way to the world championship android. But it is on a global scale. In Russia, a completely different situation.
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Having created the most effective global “ecosystem”, and not hindering “gray” imports, as well as controlling only one (!) Actual Iphone phone model, Apple (the most significant competitor of Blackberry) took the leading position in the smartphone market in the highest price category. The consumer world has changed, and Apple was one of the first to feel this: without a final connection with the customer, it is impossible to achieve large-scale sales.
Competitor # 2 is Android, and this opponent is more serious. Here, the competitor is not the only company, even though the world leader, with a single phone model! Android is a mobile platform released by the all-powerful Google, and supported by the most powerful "players" in the market of smartphone makers in the world: HTC (High Tech Computer Corporation), Samsung, Motorola, even Nokia "glances" towards Google, although they recently concluded a strategic alliance with Microsoft. The motivation of manufacturers to use Android is the "victorious" march of Google to conquer search engines and additional services in the world's largest markets, and Russia is far from being an exception in this market.
In Russia, Blackberry is burdened by law, and the devices are imported as encryption tools with the appropriate “bouquet” of bureaucratic procedures, which greatly affects the logistics and the price of the final device.
The official functionality is severely limited by the regulator, in this case, the Federal Security Service, one of the most popular services in the world, Blackberry Messenger, has been turned off, as well as becoming the de-facto one of the most important high-speed data transmission standards WI FI.
All data transmission by corporate users is also controlled by the regulator.
Apparently, due to the prevailing reasons, and also not the healthiest economic situation in Russia - low GDP per capita, monocentricity (population concentration in several major cities), poverty of the Russian population and underdevelopment of telecommunications in Russia (meaning broadband, Wimax, 3G, LTE, etc.), until recently, made our market unattractive for Research in Motion. We will try to touch upon all the aspects already mentioned in more detail and consider promising ways for the development of blackberry in Russia.
What is blackberry
BlackBerry is not just a smartphone, as the absolute majority of users think, but a whole technology that involves a set of services peculiar only to this solution:
- Receiving e-mail online.
- Almost instant application download with low traffic.
- Encrypt all data traffic with robust algorithms.
- PUSH technology and mail synchronization: New messages are automatically sent to smartphones that are constantly connected to the wireless network and integrated with corporate mailboxes.
- Wireless synchronization of calendar, contacts, notes and tasks: Automatic update between your smartphone and PIM tools.
- Wireless Mail Setup: Configure Filters, Signatures, etc.
- Wireless installation add. applications: Ability to download and install applications on your smartphone.
- View attachments: View attachments of popular formats from your smartphone.
- Remote access to the corporate address book: The ability to search for contacts in the corporate address book.
- Secure remote access to corporate resources: Access to databases and other corporate systems.
- Blackberry Messenger - a unique chat integrated with the corporate network and the ability to access it: file transfer, voice traffic, location, as possible with personal chats, and with the help of conferences.
- Pin-to-Pin service - secure (encrypted) and free messages from phone to phone, analog SMS
- Special tariff plans for data transmission worldwide (inter-operator agreements)
These devices are produced by Canadian company RIM (Research In Motion), which began its ascent to the Olympus of technological domination since the mid-90s. Initially, the company positioned its product as a safe and secure solution for working with e-mail. The first devices did not have the function of voice data transmission and were designed exclusively for working with e-mail. Moreover, all the company's developments were directed exclusively to the corporate segment, i.e. to work with corporate e-mail and mail servers Microsoft Exchange, Novell or Lotus Domino. Subsequently, the company also reached the level of an ordinary user, providing the opportunity to work with public postal resources such as: mail.ru, yandex.ru or gmail.com. Today, anyone who lives in Europe or the United States can buy a BlackBerry device and take advantage of the entire arsenal of company services. Unfortunately, in Russia everything is completely different at the moment ... While in the USA and Europe the iPhone was squeezed out by the BlackBerry and in 2010 RIM was recognized as the most profitable and fast-growing company with a subscriber base of more than 36 million people, in Russia there are no more than a few tens of thousands, and even then, half of them use the BlackBerry as a simple communicator.
BlackBerry smartphones provide an opportunity to use a large number of communication services, transmission services and data access, as well as multimedia functions - that is, in one stylish device everything that the owner may need is concentrated.
BlackBerry devices, which are offered at the choice of the corporate client, meet the requirements of internal policies and standards of various categories of customers regarding the use of wireless communication by its employees and the allowed additional functions of user devices. BlackBerry devices support making phone calls, exchanging corporate email and instant messaging, browsing and organizing, and can also have built-in cameras and media players.
Concluding the brief excursion, we can say that the main modernization breakthrough of the Blackberry is to provide a person with another degree of freedom - not to be tied to the office, and at the same time remain in the workplace, while having only a “regular” smartphone in your pocket. its size does not exceed similar models from other manufacturers.
The situation in the market of mobile platforms and smartphones in the world
According to IDC analytical agency, for the entire 2010, 302.6 million units were shipped to the global smartphone market. Moreover, the largest number falls on the fourth quarter (100.9 million, which is 87.2% more than in the same period a year ago).
First place in terms of supply is Nokia (100.3 million devices). The top five manufacturers also included RIM (Research In Motion), Apple, Samsung and HTC.
RIM, which occupies the second place of honor, released a record number of smartphones for the 2010-2011 fiscal year, its deliveries reached 52.3 million units, which is 43% more compared to the previous year. Revenue for the year ended February 26, 2011, grew by 33% to $ 19.9 billion, compared with $ 15.0 billion in the 2009–2010 fiscal year. Profit rose 47% to $ 3.4 billion. Cash and cash equivalents as of February 26 totaled $ 2.7 billion, an increase of $ 227 million over the past 3 months.
As for the situation on the market of operating systems for smartphones, here, according to IDC (for 2010), the following alignment of forces is observed:
The Google Android platform continues to grow at a steady pace, becoming the engine of the market. Its success is ensured by such world-famous companies as HTC, LG, Motorola Mobility, Samsung, which produce devices on the Android OS.
On the contrary, the Symbian operating system currently only supports Nokia. However, according to rumors, and she may abandon Symbian in favor of the competing platform Windows Phone 7 or all the same Android.
The performance of the “newbie” - Windows Phone 7, which entered the market in the fall of 2010, is relatively small: in about two months the shipping volume is about 1.5 million WP7 devices.
The shares that occupy in the global smartphone market of the company Research In Motion (manufacturer of BlackBerry) and Apple, promoting their own mobile operating systems, are 16.1% and 15.7%, respectively.
Smartphone market in Russia
According to the results of the study of the Russian smartphone market by the analytical group SmartMarketing, sales in 2010 amounted to 1,319 thousand units (50.45% of the market for WID-class devices and smartphones together). For the first time, the smartphone market has almost reached the level of the WID class device market by this indicator.
Fluctuations of the quarterly dynamics remained insignificant, the share of smartphones accounted for 64.66% in the first quarter of 2010, 55.03% in the second quarter of 2010, 49.84% in the third quarter of 2010, 43.96% in the fourth quarter 2010, continuing the positive trend for WID, celebrated since Q3 2009 (see Appendix 2)
It should be noted that the main engine of this process was systemic restructuring of the market structure due to the growing demand for information services and intellectual services from the mass consumer, price ranges that occurred as a result of the emergence of new platforms and the increased activity of a number of vendors previously invisible in the market. Following the results of 2010, the top five leaders of the market for WID and smartphones in general are: Nokia (50.32%), Samsung (10.89%), HTC (10.68%), Apple (7.46%), Sony Ericsson (6.69%).
Significant dynamics is observed in the market of platforms. In general, Symbian maintains the leading position, accounting for 54.53% at the end of the year (including smartphones and WID based on it), Android ranked second (22.48%), Windows Mobile ranked third (11.94% ), further iOS (7.46%), Bada (2.45%), etc.
If we consider only WID devices as more technological and more relevant from the point of view of the development of mass non-voice services, we get the following: the leading position in 2010 was held by the Android platform (45.4% in the WID segment), then Windows Mobile (24.1 %), iOS (15.1%), Symbian (8.2%), Bada (4.9%) and BlackBerry OS (1.6%), the share of other platforms (HTC Smart, Maemo, Palm / HP webOS and etc. - less than 1%).
According to SmartMarketing, a decisive role in the further development of the mobile device market in 2011 will be played by an increasing price struggle, both in its direct forms and manifested indirectly (sponsoring tariffs, smartphone branding, etc.).
The price erosion according to SmartMarketing estimates for 2010 averaged 16-20%, and for individual segments the figures are even higher. However, in the future it is possible that this trend will intensify, forcing manufacturing companies to continue to increase production speed.
The trend of “branding” with a high probability may lead to a redefinition of the market price structure and cheaper WID and smartphones in general. That is, Blackberry will have, including indirect methods, to strengthen its presence in the Russian market, so if Blackberry and Apple keep parity in the US market, then the share in Russia will differ by an order of magnitude.
The reasons that hinder the development of Blackberry in Russia
Legislation
The Federal Security Service issued MTS and VimpelCom permission to permanently import Blackberry smartphones into Russia only in 2008. Until that time, since RIM disagreed with the requirements for reducing the encryption key and using SORM equipment when providing Blackberry services, legal import of smartphones was prohibited and This service was not provided. This circumstance did not allow the Canadian company to enter the smartphone market in Russia in time. By 2008, the market was already not only divided, but also saturated with various devices from Nokia, Samsung, Sony Erricsson, moreover, by this time, the main competitor of Blackberry - Apple, had “marched victoriously” across the market for more than half a year.
The requirements of the federal law “On Communications” and orders of the Ministry of Communications and Telecommunications also oblige operators to decrypt transmitted information if additional coding is performed, and in the Blackberry service and smartphones this is one of the main competitive advantages, because RIM is the world’s leading cryptographic company de facto in the US state standard.
Therefore, cellular operators providing this service (in this case, MTS and Beeline) and corporate customers using the Blackberry Enterprise Server service have to pay for the installation of SORM equipment for their unhindered access of special services to subscriber data at their own expense. That puts the service itself in a very controversial position. On the one hand, high data security, tested and supported worldwide at a very reasonable cost, since the supplied solution is, firstly, holistic, and secondly, it makes it possible to reduce the price, subject to the millions of sales that we see all over the world. On the other hand, in Russia, the regulator even under the condition of work on request (that is, tracking data selectively) and the lack of total control of data, has the ability to control the system de facto and de jure. Plus to this circumstance, the developers of SORM equipment, which all customers, whether the end customer or telecom operator, have to buy, due to their monopoly state position, set such prices for their equipment that the blackberry service turns into a very “expensive toy”. In addition to the basic cost, the cost of implementation also rises due to the complexity of the entire data transmission system. RIM does not develop its products according to the requirements of each specific special service.
Competitors
Blackberry is often compared to Apple and quite reasonably: both companies have their own mobile platforms, they themselves produce mobile devices, unlike Google. What gives them the ability to extremely quickly and efficiently form “ecosystems”, which at the moment are rightfully called among the best on the planet. That is, in expressions, so beloved by Russian economic officials, they are vertically integrated corporations, such as “Gazprom” in the field of telecommunications and digital technology.
That, in turn, bears on itself and the prints of technological deficiencies that these systems have:
- isolation;
- the lack of synergies from working with external manufacturers of software and equipment. All that Google has. Plus, Apple has Steve Jobs and a sufficiently strong position in the computer market, which makes it possible to more effectively manage the mobile platform. No wonder that on March 24, RIM announced that the new tablet devices will take into account the possibility of compatibility with the Android platform promoted by Google.
- As we showed in the Android review from Google, pushing competitors, came out on top among mobile platforms and, apparently, is not going to give up their positions in the future. There are several good reasons for this:
- Android is an open system, and the mobile application store has about 150,000 applications, most of which are free (Apple has about 300,000, Blackberry 20,000);
- Internet technologies are the main business of Google, which is the number one search engine in the world.
- Apple, in turn, is also an Internet giant and produces its full-fledged operating system, and besides it is a trendsetter in the field of computer and industrial design, which gives it an undeniable advantage over its competitors.
Apple vs Blackberry Ecosystem
Steve Jobs - a recognized computer guru brought once "stagnating" computer assembly company, he also created, but left for a long time, the leaders of the global IT industry.
Apple, having overtaken Microsoft by capitalization, presented the world with a new level of industrial and computer design, software ergonomics and, as a result, the most efficient and monetized ecosystem. As of January 2011, in the appstore - the largest online application supermarket - there were more than 300 thousand different programs for the iPhone and more than 40 thousand applications for the iPad tablet. On January 24, 2011, the milestone of 10 billion downloads of the application was reached. The Android market boasts 150,000 applications, but the growth of applications for android is far ahead of the growth of applications for apple. In the blackberry app world at the moment there are no more than 20,000 applications.
Plus, Apple has become a trendsetter and a pioneer in the tablet computer market, putting an ipad on the market in more than 15 million units in just one and a half years. March 11 started selling Ipad2, for which lined up the queue. Blackberry Playbook, which according to RIM was supposed to be a worthy answer. Ipad is released only on April 19, 2011, which is more than a month later the second version of Jobs' tablet. The company for too long announced various versions and modifications of the Playbook, which led to the fact that the ipad only strengthened its presence in the market.
AndroidHTC and Samsung
On March 24, Researchin Motion released a press release, according to which Android applications will work on the playbook ... it sounded almost like surrender if we consider the strategic development path. The Android application market has grown three times in a year in nine months, besides Android applications are either free or their cost is 30-40% cheaper than similar applications in Blackberry App World. HTC is also working on Google, whose new models mainly come with Android support. Korean chaebol LG and Samsung continuously release new models. Samsung Galaxy Tab (tablet) sold around the world for the first month of sales of millions of copies. Their cumulative share in our market is more than 48%, if 15% of Apple and 8% of Nokia are removed from here, there will not be much space ... The speed of release of new models of Korean giants and HTC is amazing. Android is developing “by leaps and bounds”, and Google is bringing to the market more and more new services and buying up successful technological startups.
Vendor conservatism
The strength of the brand, which still allows Blackberry to sell millions of devices around the world, still does not allow to look into the future with unconditional optimism. Sometimes companies overestimate their strength, so, apparently, it was when Blackberry entered the Russian market. We see the efforts with which RIM brings its first tablet to the market, and at the same time it provides for the convergence of its platform from Android to the Playbook. It speaks more about Google's winnings, as it is now easier for Blackberry developers to write an Android application and rely on a wider audience.
Another disturbing trend has been the shift in demand for BlackBerry devices manufactured by RIM to the low-end side. Sales are growing mainly due to cheap models, while the expensive ones remain low in demand. This is not surprising: the RIM operating system is morally obsolete, there is little software for it, and it takes advantage of expensive hardware to work with. Obviously, the company is moving by inertia, due to its huge share of the world market, but this situation is not in Russia, here the market share of Blackberry is small, in official developers only Aion is listed.
Moreover, if Apple controls the price of an iphone worldwide, then the prices of gray and white phones may differ significantly. A striking example of this, the new Blackberry 9800, on which RIM made a bet, is sold from the exclusive supplier of this model to the Russian market VimpelCom (Beeline) for 29,900 rubles, then on the Internet you can find this device for 17,000 rubles, and services wi fi and blackberry messenger will be open, unlike the "white" phones.
Selling, like Apple, devices only through cellular operators, without having its own service center, the company puts itself in a very difficult position.
The main "trick" Blackberry is in the "ecosystem" - a smartphone, giving the opportunity to use a technologically advanced service. But in our country, with its tough legislation and technological backwardness, these devices simply will not be sold. As we already wrote: the service is “heavy”, the operating system for the most part requires modernization (it’s not a wonder that a new operating system will already be installed on the playbook), and competitors are increasing their advantage on the contrary. Cellular operators, who are called to sell the service together with the devices, in fact, are cumbersome bureaucratic structures and cannot adequately respond to the speed of market demands. Moreover, their main business remains the exploitation of cellular infrastructure, which does not bring additional incentives for the development of services.
The main ways and prospects of development
Blackberry is one of the most recognizable brands in the developed world, which has rightfully become the mobile corporate standard in the Old and New Worlds. Due to the fact that Blackberry as a brand exists on the Russian market relatively recently (2008), and the service to the mass segment - individuals began to be provided only in 2009, the majority of Russian consumers did not know about it.
Until 2011, one of the two cellular operators providing the Blackberry Enterprise Service (Server) service, VimpelCom OJSC (Beeline), could do this only in the two largest cities of Russia - Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Therefore, the main consumers of the Blackberry service were either foreign companies or multinational companies, including foreign ones, which are well acquainted with this service in foreign markets.
And, therefore, as it seems to us, it is worth bringing to the Russian market all those successful elements that enabled RIM to gain global popularity. No company in the world can boast of a holistic solution in the field of corporate business, ranging from integrating and maintaining the functions of the most popular mail servers such as Lotus Domino and Microsoft Exchange on mobile devices, providing secure and compressed mobile traffic, to providing the devices intended specifically to work with the service, that is, support encryption. At the same time, along with Apple, RIM is also a trendsetter in industrial design. Most corporate qwerty-keyboard smartphones are Blackberry followers as well as touch-screen models follow the Iphone tradition. But,like any solution, although convenient and breakthrough in every respect (any breakthrough solution is an innovation and innovation), it requires extremely strong support when entering the market. And in the conditions of the Russian legislation, and as a consequence of the further complication of the decision-making process, it should be even more demanding of service and support.
Even the notorious Blackberry Internet Service, which allows capturing the mass market and enables ordinary users, individuals, to get the Blackberry service, is implemented in our country with a fairly truncated functionality. There is a strange situation: operators selling services are forced to sell devices with “closed” wi fi and the absence of a blackberry messenger, one of the most popular Blackberry services.
“Gray” phones support these functions, and operators have to “close their eyes” to this circumstance.
Various SORM solutions for operators also do not bring clarity to the market, and consumers are forced to guess at what kind of service and how much they can get.
Standard support services, in principle, are not designed for technically complex decisions in view of the organizational scheme of call-centers built by operators.
One of the possible solutions to the problem of promoting Blackberry to the Russian market is the establishment and support of specialized companies that, using the RIM ideology, could provide a full service: from selling the device to connecting and configuring it. One such striking example is ServiceBerry, the official partner of RIM and VimpelCom, for the sale and support of Blackberry services in Russia. Taking the approach of the service provider company, Serviceberry (Serviceberry) provides a full range of services by providing the Hosted Blackberry Enterprise Server service and the Blackberry Internet Service, in which the client does not have to buy expensive equipment, maintain it, have a highly qualified staff. This provides the opportunity to receive the service at a reasonable price.Also, the sale of equipment and service support to end users provides the opportunity to completely cover all issues relating to the service. That is, in fact, it is a “manual” mechanism for managing an “ecosystem” in Russia, however, like any other management in our country.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/117398/
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