BlackBerry has stated the Nigerian market is essential in its strategy to progress the profit platform by 2016.
It said it was focusing more on the country because the market was critical to its rebound and return to growth and profitability.
“We are also focusing on our core competence of security and enterprise solutions and applications,” the Territory Director, East, West, Central and Southern Africa, Blackberry, Mr. Charles Asinugo, said in Lagos on Thursday during the introduction of the Blackberry Z3, its latest smartphone.
“The Nigerian market is one of the strategic markets for BlackBerry, and we hopefully look onto Nigeria to contribute to returning us to profitability, and we also have greater potential for apps development on our BB in Nigeria,” he said.
The BlackBerry territory director said as part of the strategy, the company was looking at the lower segment of the market.
Asinugo said the strategy informed the earlier introduction of Z30, which he said, was meant to replace the very high-end Z10.
He said, “The Z10 is at its end of life. In the next few months, you may not actually get to see the Z10 in the market again because it is reaching its end of life. We thought that by introducing the Z3, it will create potential danger to the Z10 market and that is why we decided that the Z30, which offers almost the same experience with the Z10 be introduced to replace the Z10 in the market.
“It is also part of our strategy to focus more on the lower segment of the market in terms of pricing, yet with the same great experience.”
Asinugo noted that Blackberry was re-strategising, restructuring and streamlining its resources where necessary.
“We are going into enterprise and security solutions also, and these are where we have core competence in terms of secure communications,” he said.
The new BlackBerry Z3 smartphone is expected to be sold through authorised partners at a recommended price.
