BLACKBERRY:

BlackBerry is a line of mobile email and smartphone devices developed and designed by Canadian company Research In Motion (RIM) since 1999. BlackBerry devices are smartphones, designed to function as personal digital assistants, portable media players, internet browsers, gaming devices, and much more. They are primarily known for their ability to send and receive (push) email and instant messages while maintaining a high level of security through ondevice message encryption. Blackberry devices support a large variety of instant messaging features, including BlackBerry Messenger. BlackBerry accounts for 3% of smartphone sales worldwide in 2011, making its manufacturer RIM the sixth most popular device maker. The consumer BlackBerry Internet Service is available in 91 countries worldwide on over 500 mobile service operators using various mobile technologies. As of October 2011, there were seventy million subscribers worldwide to BlackBerry. At present the Caribbean, has the highest penetrations of BlackBerry Messenger worldwide with up to about 90 per cent in the region having a RIM device.

1.1 BASIC ECONOMIES OF MOBILE PHONE MARKET

A) WORLD MOBILE MARKET:

1) There will be 5.3 billion mobile subscriptions by the end of 2010, estimates The International Telecommunication Union (October 2010). That is equivalent to 77 percent of the world population. And is a huge increase from 4.6 billion mobile subscriptions at the end of 2009. 90 percent of the world now lives in a place with access to a mobile network. For people living in rural communities this is lower at 80 percent. At the end of 2011 there will be 3.8 billion mobile subscriptions in the developing world thats 73 percent of global subscriptions.

Key Global Telecom Indicators for the World Telecommunication Service Sector in 2010 (all figures are estimates)

Glob al

Develop ed nations

Developi ng nations

Asia Arab Afric & State CIS a Pacifi s c

The Europ America e s

Mobile cellular subscriptio 5,282 1,436 ns (millions)

3,846

333

282

2,649 364

741

880

Per 100 people

76.2% 116.1%

67.6%

41.4 %

79.4% 67.8%

131.5 %

120.0 %

94.1%

Fixed telephone lines (millions) (

1,197 506

691

13

33

549

74

249

262

Per 100 people

17.3% 40.9%

12.1%

1.6% 9.4%

14.0% 26.6% 40.3% 28.1%

Mobile broadband subscriptio 940 ns (millions)

631

309

29

34

278

72

286

226

Per 100 people

13.6% 51.1%

5.4%

3.6% 9.7%

7.1%

25.9% 46.3% 24.2%

Fixed broadband subscriptio 555 ns (millions)

304

251

223

24

148

145

per 100 people

8.0%

24.6%

4.4%

0.2% 2.3%

5.7%

8.7%

23.9% 15.5%

Source: International Telecommunication Union (October

2011)
2) Mobile growth is being driven by demand developing world, says The ITU (October

2011) and is being fuelled by India and China in particular. These two countries collectively added 300 million new mobile subscriptions in 2010 thats more than the total mobile subscribers in the US. Mobile penetration is fast reaching saturation point at over 100 percent mobile penetration Mobile penetration in the developing world now is 68 percent. Mobile penetration in Africa is the lowest worldwide at 41 percent. The world's most populous nations have the most mobile subscriptions (unsurprisingly), China and India lead growth. China: 859 million mobile subscribers (64 percent of population) in Dec 2010, up 112 million from 2009. Of these 47 million were 3G mobile phone users (National Bureau of Statistics of China February 2011). India: 840.28 million subscribers (70 percent of population) in May 2011, up 223 million from May 2010 (TRAI, June 2010). USA: 302.9 million subscribers (96 percent of population) in Dec 2010 (CTIA).

3)Smartphone sales showed strong growth worldwide in 2010.

IDC (February 2011): Total shipments in 2010 were 302.6 million units up 74.4 percent from 2009. This makes smartphones 21.8 percent of all handsets shipped. Strategy Analytics (February 2011): Total shipments in 2010 were 292.9 million units up 67.6
percent from 2009. This makes smartphones 21.5 percent of all handsets shipped.

Top five mobile smartphone manufacturers, by 2010 global sales according to IDC

Top three smartphone manufacturers, by 2010 global sales according to Strategy Analytics

Rank Vendor

Marke Annual Unit t sales shipments share growth

Unit Marke Annual Ran Vendo shipment t sales k r s share growth

Nokia

100.3 million

33.1%

48.2%

Nokia

100.1 million

34.2% 47.6%

RIM

48.8 million 16.1%

41.4%

RIM

48.8 million

16.7% 41.4%

Apple

47.5 million 15.7%

89.2%

Apple

47.5 million

16.2% 89.3%

Samsun 23 million g

7.6%

318.2%

Other

96.5 million

32.9% 103.9%

HTC

21.5 million 7.1%

165.4%

Other

61.5

20.3%

88.7%

Total

302.6 million

100.0% 74.4%

Total

292.9 million

100.0 %

67.6%

Source:

Source:

IDC (February 2011)

Strategy Analytics (February 2011)

B) MOBILE PHONE MARKET IN INDIA

People have greater access to cell phones than toilets in India, claims a 2010 UN report.Surprisingly, a country where only 31% of the population has access to proper sanitation, has more than 500 million cell phone subscribers. While the UN report directly condemns the public sector for its poor performance in the social segment, it subtly highlights the marketing skills of the industry leaders in the cell phone sector for a job well done.. Cellphones have lost their status of being luxury items even among poverty stricken regions of India. They have become a part of routine life a necessity for a majority of the population of the country. According to a 2009 EuroMonitor report, the volume sales of cell phones surged by 33%, reaching 128.7 million units in 2008.

One major factor has been the free incoming calls feature offered by cellular providers in India. SMART PHONE MARKET IN INDIA Smartphones have taken over the Indian market, with a growth of 68% year-on- year. The January-March quarter of 2011 witnessed a marginal growth of 0.4% in the smartphone segment, gathering an overall share of 5.6% in the mobile phone market. Q2 of 2011 witnessed a growth of 3.6% in smartphones in the overall mobile phone market. These figures signal the steady rise in the popularity of smartphones in India, with consumers looking for handsets that enable them to organise, share and stay connected with the world. Mobile phone shipments touched 42.8 million in absolute terms in the second quarter of 2011 as a whole, and smartphones have had a definitive role to play in these numbers. Furthermore, dual-SIM handsets have shown an impressive sequential growth of 25.2% over the Jan-March quarter. What is notable is the fact that smartphones with average sales value of Rs. 18,000 and above witnessed a growth of 31% over Q1 CY2011 and a staggering 96% over the year-ago quarter of Q2 CY2011. Apples iOS garnered a growth of 2.6%, a more respectable share as compared to the previous quarter, however in terms of momentum, Android scored with the highest growth rate of 10%, quarter-on-quarter.

Meanwhile, the Finnish handset giant Nokia continued to lead the Indian market with a smartphone share of 45.8%. The companys dual-SIM handsets have done well and contributed to its growing share. The Galaxy series of smartphones has also increased Samsungs share in the smartphone market by 21% followed by RIM with a share of 15%. Indiabased handsets continue to make a mark with Karbonn, Micromax, Lava, Spice and MAXX accounting for 19% in overall shipments. Low-cost Android smartphones are going increase their share in the smartphone segment in the future, with these companies looking to expand on the hugely popular OS developed by Google. According to IDC, smartphone shipments will be touching 81.5 million by 2015, overall shipments being 328 million i.e. CAGR of 68.4% and CAGR of 14.5% respectively.

SECOND PART:

ENVIROMENTAL ISSUES:

SOCIO-CULTURAL FACTORS One of the greatest socio-cultural factors affecting the handset market is the increasing need of social recognition among the masses, which is further fuelled by lowering of tariff rates by the service providers. Moreover with higher spending power among the masses, festivals and marriages and other socio cultural factors affect handset sales. Socio-cultural environment shapes customers beliefs, values, and norms. The social and cultural factors that influence the buying behaviour of consumers are inclusive of culture, social class, reference group, family, demographics and geography. Culture is an amalgam of tangible factors and intangible traditions that enunciate the lifestyle of a particular group of people. As for social class, it defines the income group the individual belongs too and that, in turn, is heavily dependent on the income earned, which is a great factor in determining buying behaviour. The third factor is the reference group. As is obvious from the name it is the group from whom the consumer seeks reference. It could range from people like one's parents, members of the family whom the individual feels close to, close friends, celebrities who endorse the brand etc. People whom we trust, their opinion means a great deal to us and affects many decisions of ours including buying behaviour. Regarding family, this determinant is totally different from the erstwhile one as this one focuses on the norms and preferences of the family in which the individual lives and is brought up. Moreover this determinant is on a collective and unconscious basis as the individual's buying decision is taking effect from the ambience of his family and the unconscious way he has grasped the values that have been given to him by his family. Coming to demographics, these are small and specific details about the individual such as age, gender, education, income, occupation etc. Also the geographical location in which the consumer resides also determines the buying behaviour depending on sub-factors like climatic conditions, availability of resources, surroundings etc.

ENVIROMENTAL ISSUES FOR BLACKBERRY IN INDIA: 1) POLITICAL/LEGAL ISSUES

Blackberys messaging issue: BlackBerry's encrypted email and messaging services are very safe and very hard to decode. This Indian government wanted the means to track and read its secure email and instant messaging services that officials fear have the potential to be misused by militants and to create political instability.

India's stand India says it wants realtime access to RIM's BlackBerry Enterprise Email and its Messenger services in a readable format. Security officials say the inability to monitor BlackBerry traffic undermines efforts to protect national security. Rim's response RIM has so far said it cannot unscramble data of its enterprise customers because it does not possess the keys needed to do so. BlackBerry security is based on a system where the customers create their own key and the company neither has a master key nor any "back door" to allow RIM or any third party to gain access to crucial corporate data, it has said.

The encrypted traffic is delivered through its network operating centres, based mostly in Canada, though corporate clients can choose to host their BlackBerry Enterprise Servers (BES) elsewhere. RIM can only identify the senders and recipients of emails and log items such as when they were sent or whether they had attachments. Solutions so far After several meetings, RIM proposed it could share the IP address of BlackBerry Enterprise Servers, and the PIN and IMEI numbers of BlackBerry mobiles. India says that is not enough because it doesn't provide access to mails. The smartphone maker has assured Indian authorities it will provide manual access to its instant messenger services which bypasses the BlackBerry Enterprise Server. Authorities said the company has assured it was developing a tool to help provide fully automated realtime access to Messenger services by November this year. Indian authorities have agreed to allow messenger services to continue. Impact of a possible ban India has one mobile connection for every two of its 1.2 billion people and adds 16 million new subscribers a month. A shutdown would affect about 1 million users in India out of a total 41 million BlackBerry users worldwide, allowing them to use the devices only for calls and Internet browsing.

2) A)

FIERCE COMPETITION IN THE SMART PHONE MARKET: GLOBAL MARKET:

Globally, RIM holds 20% of the smartphone market share. Although this is a rather substantial portion of the available market, RIM faces threats from close smartphone competitors and is constantly rivaling to stay on top. Smartphone competitors consist of: High Tech Computer (HTC), Apple, Nokia, Googles Android, Samsung and Palm. Apples smartphone net sales for the fiscal year end September 2008 was $11.8 billion. In 2009, research shows that Apple smartphones seized 13.3% of the global market share as their 3GB iPhone is growing in popularity selling for $199 with a service contract (Datamonitor, 2009; Toronto Star, 2009). Additionally, the iPhone provides a competitive advantage, as the device is able to run upwards of 85,000 applications providing higher utility for customers. Likewise, Nokia dominates the global smartphone share at 40% threatening North American market shares (Abkowitz, 2009).

B)INDIAN MARKET: BASIC SMARTPHONE MARKET IN INDIA:

The sales took the downward plunge and apparently, a lot of people compromised on their handsets thanks to the slowdown. Another reason for the steep dip was the erratic VAT hike across a few states, including Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, which affected sales and diverted several purchases to the grey channel. Also, FY10 was a year marked by the excitement wave around Apples iPhone. Maximum purchases of the iPhone happened through illegitimate channels. That also, to some extent, would have affected the official retail sales. All these factors resulted in a shocking dip of almost Rs 1,500 crore in the overall smartphone market. The overall market stood at Rs 4,465 crore in FY10, down by 23% from Rs 5,800 crore in 2008-09. However, enthusiasm around the segment managed to retain its all time high with OEMs getting innovative, service providers getting collaborative and consumers getting educated.

DQ CyberMedia Research Estimates In the vendor landscape, it is Nokia that reigns, thanks to its Symbian loyalties. However, in FY10, Nokia got some stiff competition from RIM as BlackBerry handsets were a rage in the previous year, their low cost range doing the trick. Apples iPhone also did well, though it sold mostly through the grey market channels

Competitors:
The main competitors for blackberry in indian market are: 1) Nokia: First foreign player to enter indian market in 1995. It gained its foothold by pffering basic phones at affordable prices It then launched its latest range of touch screen, hi-end phones which have become very popular. BRAND FOCUS: a) b) c) d) Gaming options Multimedia GPRS Faster internet connection

1)

Sony Eriksson 2001, Sony Ericsson enters the Indian Market. Introduced affordable smartphones in the market such as hi-tech multimedia features, camera phones, design phones, music phones

1) Motorola: Motorola smartphones are mainly focused on data communication and mobile entertainment features with its new range that includes Aura A1600 and WX series.

Although Research In Motion's BlackBerry has attracted considerable attention because of the Indian government's security concerns about its encryption of data, the device is not a runaway success in India. India added 18 million mobile connections in June, taking the total number of subscribers to 636 million, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. But the Indian smartphone market is still quite small. About 6 percent of the 140 million mobile phones sold are likely to be smartphones. Nokia leads the smartphone market, he added. Gupta did not have data for the share of RIM, though he estimated that it was among the top five smartphone vendors in the country.

RIM does not disclose its sales figures for India

BLACKBERRYS ENTRY INTO INDIA: SUCCESS

The blackberry mobile was rolled in the year of 1999 in India, functioning as a two-way pager at the time. As the time spent the improvement has been occurred by 2002 and the Blackberry handsets featured email, text message, web browsing, voice communication and even internet faxing functionality. It is the Canadian based company and the main reason of the success of Blackberry was its email capabilities. The Canadian company RIM - the makers of BlackBerry smartphone platform is doing quite well in India. It had, thanks to some snappy advertising campaigns, attractively priced entry-level products (such as the Curve 8520) as well as marketing the BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) as a free chat service had cracked the youth market. College kids, who were spending far too much on messaging and even with the now 'enhanced' 200 messages a day limit, spent far too much time texting, loved BBM. Research in Motion (RIM) has managed to achieve two things in the last 18 months. It has managed to grab a big chunk of the smartphone market in India. In 2010, its market share stood at 6 percent of the smartphone market in the first quarter. By the end of 2010, they had over 10 percent of the market. By May this year, it was at 13 percent. By the end of 2011, they are expected to have around 20 percent, which would be close to the market share of Samsung, the current smartphone market leader in India. BlackBerry has done this by attracting that trendy, but hard to please segment: The young consumer. The Blackberry cell phones are coming up with the QWERTY keypad to give the smooth and hassle free typing to the users and also make it far easier to send email than with many other handheld devices. To provide the easy navigation the blackberry phones were introduced with the scroll ball. Some Blackberry mobiles even engaged with the PTT (push to talk) capabilities, like a walkie-talkie. These measures help in attracting Indias younger generation. Frenny Bawa, the 51-year-old managing director of RIM, who has overseen the execution of the companys plan in India, has done it when RIMs situation globally has been distinctly downbeat. Now in India, 90 percent of mobile connections in India are prepaid. BlackBerry sat down with operators, and renegotiated new, cheaper plans for its BBM and e-mails. The game-changer, of course, was BBM. For the young consumer, it is more about remaining connected 24x7 than phone calls. For RIM, teenage to college-going women is a market they have tapped, and which holds great potential. Which is why expect to see more of candycoloured variants in the Curve range, which have been a hit. Good Internet connectivity is a plus too.

WHY BLACKBERRY CAME TO INDIA: The following are some of the factors why blackberry ventured into the Indian market. 1) SIZE OF THE MARKET
India has the world's second-largest mobile phone users with over 881 million as of October 2011. It has the world's fourth-largest Internet users with over 100 million as of December 2010. India has come to be regarded as the world's most competitive and one of the fastest growing telecom market. The industry is expected to reach a size of 344,921 crore (US$65.53 billion) by 2012 at a growth rate of over 26 per cent
This is the biggest reason why blackberry decided to enter this huge market.

1) Political-Legal Environment: This environment is composed of laws, government

agencies, and pressure groups that influence and limit various organizations and individuals .Sometimes these laws create new opportunities for business. Various political and legal factors affect a particular industry. By crossing the critical 100 million mark, India has one of the largest mobile service markets in the world. In last two years alone, mobile phone users have jumped from 50 million to over 100 million. Other than the trend of growing Household income in India, the recent mobile market expansion in India has been driven mainly by enlightened regulation and market innovation. We explore some of the drivers below: Enlightened Regulation The Indian Government has been promoting market liberalisation and simplifying regulation. Unified Licensing Indian government has issued new type of unified licences to operators, enabling them to provide both fixed and mobile services. Fixed-Mobile convergence makes the bundling of services easier and operators are offering much wider choice of product to consumers. The unified licences also allow interconnectivity across contiguous circles ; it is no longer necessary to route inter-circle traffic through a National Long Distance operator which causes delay and increases costs. Lowering of Interconnect Charges Lowering interconnection charges has direct impact on mobile service tariff and interconnection traffic will be boosted significantly, both fixed to mobile and mobile to mobile services will benefit. Made Licence Fees 10%-15% of Revenue instead of a fixed amount irrespective of the operators revenue. The fixed amount licence fee posed a serious entry barrier to smaller operators and service providers before, now with fee linked with revenue, small players can grow, evolve and diversify into different segment and offer innovative products and services to the market. Simplified Frequency Allocation Process Radio spectrum is critical for mobile service, therefore if frequency allocation process is lengthy and bureaucratic, mobile services deployment will be delayed and it will hamper the whole industrys development. As the allocation process is getting more simplified and transparent, networks are rolled out faster. In summary, regulatory changes have lowered tariffs, bringing down overall cost of service ownership and boosted investments in the networks which enhance both mobile service quality and capacity, widened network coverage, which in turn will further lower the tariff, then encourage more consumers to take up services. 10 | P a g e

2) ECONOMIC ENVIRONMENT Market requires not only people but purchasing power
also. The available purchasing power in an economy depends on The state of the economy State of the economy related to the category of economic status of that country either is developed, developing or underdeveloped economy. Basically developing economy is the potential market of handsets as these countries have many of service providers so the demand of reliable and efficient handsets as well.... India in spite of the recession had a growing economy and hence this contributed to increased sales of handsets in these years. Income distribution- Income distribution basically related to the section of the society, high income group, high middle class group, middle class group, low middle class group & low class group. The preference of handset varies according to the income groups. As per the survey done by Nokia Mobile main focus of high income group is in the price range of >16000, Middle class group 5000 to 15000 and lower class group <5000. Market innovation has contributed to the reduction of the cost of ownership and made services more accessible for low income groups which are very price sensitive. To overcome this hurdle, Indian operators boost the penetration in low income groups with use of innovative tariff plans, offer very cheap handset to the public and exploring attractive VAS which are appealing to different segment of customers. Innovative tariff plans The following tariff plans are examples of how they have boosted handset sales: Incoming-only plans - employers got phones for chauffeurs and domestic staff; companies keep in touch with mobile work force One India tariff plan (1 Rupee/min anywhere in India) simple to grasp Lifetime prepaid plan no obligation for regular recharging Barter of talk minutes for extension of account validity Affordable (e.g. 10 Rupees) top-up values for prepaid accounts Affordable Handset The availability of low cost models from handset manufacturers price as low as Rs1, 300 to 1,400 (US$ 29 to 32) An active second-hand handset market handsets selling at as low as Rs300 to 400 (US$ 7 to 9) Attractive VAS that is compatible with less sophisticated handsets