BlackBerry may be out of the running for the best smartphone company of the decade, but it doesn’t mean that they will just fold up and die. In fact, they are serious in breaking back into the market and regaining a decent portion of the consumer.
As a first crack into the cut-throat industry, Blackberry decided to launch a new budget handset in Indonesia, one of its last bastions, in the hope it will take off in emerging markets and stem a decline in the smartphone maker's fortunes.
The touchscreen Z3, designed with Indonesia in mind but expected to be introduced in other fast-growing markets later, is the first new BlackBerry phone since chief executive John Chen took the helm of the crisis-hit company in November 2013.
The handset is also the first to be produced from the Canadian firm's partnership with Taiwanese tech giant Foxconn, which also makes gadgets for Apple, and is a key test of whether the new strategy will work.
BlackBerry hopes that the Indonesian model – whose full name is the Z3 "Jakarta Edition" – will be a hit in Southeast Asia's biggest economy, where the company maintains a loyal following, thanks in part to the popularity of its BBM messaging service.
The phone are already available in Indonesian shops and will cost 2,199,000 rupiah (US$ 190), BlackBerry said in a statement.
But even in Indonesia, the company's biggest market in Asia according to IDC telecoms consultancy, market share has shrunk dramatically in the past year and analysts are sceptical the new phone will do much to help.
IDC said BlackBerry's market share had collapsed from about 40 percent in 2011 to around five percent in the fourth quarter of 2013, due in particular to fierce competition from Samsung. It is the same story in other markets worldwide as BlackBerry fights a losing battle to keep up with fierce competition from Apple's iPhone and devices using the Google Android operating system.
The once-dominant smartphone maker has suffered heavy losses and slashed thousands of jobs in recent years. They even put the company up for sale last year but abandoned hopes of finding a buyer several months later, and ousted chief executive Thorsten Heins.
The Z3 has a five inch (13 centimetre) touchscreen, without the physical keyboard of the older devices.
The Jakarta Edition's BBM messaging service comes loaded with pictures of local cartoon characters for users to send to one another. There is also a limited edition with the inscription "Jakarta" on the back.
BlackBerry's most recent phones have not fared well in Indonesia but the company believes the Z3 will be popular, in particular due to its lower price. Retailers say that online pre-orders, which began on 28 April 2014, have been healthy.
As a first crack into the cut-throat industry, Blackberry decided to launch a new budget handset in Indonesia, one of its last bastions, in the hope it will take off in emerging markets and stem a decline in the smartphone maker's fortunes.
The touchscreen Z3, designed with Indonesia in mind but expected to be introduced in other fast-growing markets later, is the first new BlackBerry phone since chief executive John Chen took the helm of the crisis-hit company in November 2013.
The handset is also the first to be produced from the Canadian firm's partnership with Taiwanese tech giant Foxconn, which also makes gadgets for Apple, and is a key test of whether the new strategy will work.
BlackBerry hopes that the Indonesian model – whose full name is the Z3 "Jakarta Edition" – will be a hit in Southeast Asia's biggest economy, where the company maintains a loyal following, thanks in part to the popularity of its BBM messaging service.
The phone are already available in Indonesian shops and will cost 2,199,000 rupiah (US$ 190), BlackBerry said in a statement.
But even in Indonesia, the company's biggest market in Asia according to IDC telecoms consultancy, market share has shrunk dramatically in the past year and analysts are sceptical the new phone will do much to help.
IDC said BlackBerry's market share had collapsed from about 40 percent in 2011 to around five percent in the fourth quarter of 2013, due in particular to fierce competition from Samsung. It is the same story in other markets worldwide as BlackBerry fights a losing battle to keep up with fierce competition from Apple's iPhone and devices using the Google Android operating system.
The once-dominant smartphone maker has suffered heavy losses and slashed thousands of jobs in recent years. They even put the company up for sale last year but abandoned hopes of finding a buyer several months later, and ousted chief executive Thorsten Heins.
The Z3 has a five inch (13 centimetre) touchscreen, without the physical keyboard of the older devices.
The Jakarta Edition's BBM messaging service comes loaded with pictures of local cartoon characters for users to send to one another. There is also a limited edition with the inscription "Jakarta" on the back.
BlackBerry's most recent phones have not fared well in Indonesia but the company believes the Z3 will be popular, in particular due to its lower price. Retailers say that online pre-orders, which began on 28 April 2014, have been healthy.
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