On August 12, the team at Blackberry announced that they have formed a special committee to explore ‘strategic alternatives’ for themselves. Whilst they said that they are trying to “enhance value and increase sales in order to accelerate Blackberry 10 deployment”, they have also noted that these alternatives could range from joint ventures to the sale of the company.
There is evidence that Blackberry has been steadily losing market share over the past few years – their market share for the second quarter of 2013 was 2.9%, compared with 4.9% for the same quarter in 2012. Their biggest competitors are clearly Apple and Android, but they Microsoft and their Windows Phone 8 began to surpass Blackberry’s sales in the first quarter of 2013.
Some analysts have suggested that Samsung may be interested in purchasing Blackberry because they are trying to distance themselves from Google (who now own telecommunications company Motorola). There has also been some speculation that Samsung could use Blackberry to boost their own internal operating system, which they have been developing.
Even so, Kevin Smith, an equities analyst from Macquarie Securities, says that he “isn’t optimistic about Blackberry’s prospects for a sale or even to be taken private by an equity firm”. He also believes that the public announcement of the company’s uncertainty will turn away customers, making Blackberry even less attractive to any prospective buyers.
Whilst a lot still remains unclear about the future of Blackberry, one thing is certain – if something is going to be done to save this once prestigious company it needs to be done soon.
Image Source: CNET
