As I said earlier Thorsten Heins has fallen into his new CEO role with relative ease and the old guard media seems to appreciate his frankness. Heins told Reuters on Friday that “his plans for RIM would be significant” and “I will have time with the board in two weeks to present my ideas and changes.” From that same interview Heins admits that RIM has work to do in the US to turn things around and it is something he plans to address. Heins would not tell Reuters when the new BlackBerry 10 phones would come but “implied” that they would be in time for the year end holiday shopping season in Q4.
Another interesting tidbit he mentioned was that only 20% of RIM’s subscriber base in the US is using BlackBerry 7 devices which Heins says are competitive. The rest of RIM’s US consumers have devices which are up to two generations behind. Heins hints that there are carrier agreements and plans ready to get an upgrade program in place for those 80% of customers to get them onto BlackBerry 7.
I am sure many US customers are curious to know what those incentives will be… It has to be big for it to make a huge impact and it also needs to transition well into the BlackBerry 10 phone launch.
BBA Brian ( View Profile) - Posts: 1233
Posted: January 30, 2012 at 8:55 AM EST
Ronen, I believe he indicated as well that the promotion WILL NOT result in them taking a loss of sales.
Some quotes seem to indicate RIM had managed to work out deals with carriers to offer incentives such as very good Blackberry only voice/data plans
I would not be surprised if we see the 9900 be $49.99 and everything else be $0.00 on a new contact
I have heard that likely there are some promises in place to for RIM to give better pricing on BB10 devices if the carriers help RIM with OS 7 sales
BBA Brian ( View Profile) - Posts: 1233
Posted: January 30, 2012 at 8:56 AM EST
to clarify, I mean they won’t take an overall loss on each smartphone sold
ie it costs them $100 to make the phone and they sell for $75
DanielH ( View Profile) - Posts: 593
Posted: January 30, 2012 at 9:10 AM EST
I just got a upgrade quote for my 9900…$70 to send my 9700 back. I’ll take it.
PB Forever ( View Profile) - Posts: 258
Posted: January 30, 2012 at 11:50 AM EST
If the US carriers offer BB plans like they do in Canada I can bet that there may be many people ready to upgrade or change:
Unlimited BBM, unlimited social networking sites with unlimited uploades to said sites with a voice package all coming in under $50.00/month.
And Daniel, that’s a steal at $70.00!!!
PB Forever ( View Profile) - Posts: 258
Posted: January 30, 2012 at 11:51 AM EST
So does anyone think that the phone picture behind Thorsten could be the new BB10 phone? I’ve never seen a BB looking like that. It looks very much like the London imo. Or is that the Porsche concept phone?
dpr ( View Profile) - Posts: 945
Posted: January 30, 2012 at 2:28 PM EST from my BlackBerry PlayBook | OS 1.0.0
Looks like the Porsche phone.