Author: Lucy

This year will define whether or not BlackBerry continues with hardware

| February 9, 2016

The brand is already struggling to return to a smartphone space that is only increasing in competition.

The attempts being made by BlackBerry to return to a level of success in the smartphone hardware business is certainly an ongoing one, but it appears that the company has been fighting an uphill battle.

Analysts from Scotia Capital are now saying that the company will be reaching a “critical juncture” in 2016.

As much as CEO John Chen has insisted that BlackBerry will not be leaving the hardware industry and while a number of highly strategic moves have been made to help ensure that its smartphones will keep heading to store shelves – and into the hands of consumers and business users – the fact is that it is continuing to lose subscribers and money. In fact, just as the analysts made their prediction, the company also revealed that it would be laying off 125 employees in Canada, in addition to 75 workers in Florida who would also be losing their jobs.

The analysts see a number of different strategic options still left for BlackBerry as this year progresses.

Deciding Year for BlackberryThe Scotia Capital analysts said that there are three main strategic options that the Ontario, Canada-based company currently has within its reach. The first would be to step out of hardware while facing a one-time cost that they predict to be around $100 million (USD). The second would be to license its operating system or brand as a whole to another hardware manufacturer. The third would occur if the company’s hardware segment manages to reach profitability this year, in which case it should continue its operations.

A great deal of the decisions that will be made by the company will depend on whether or not its latest smartphone, the Priv slider mobile phone powered by Android, ends up being successful in its sales. Investors have a very close eye on whether or not that key mobile device is managing to appeal to enough consumers to make it worthwhile.

At the same time, BlackBerry has been continuing its evolution as a provider of enterprise software. It could end up spending as much as $1 billion (USD) on the acquisition of companies over the next couple of years and still manage to keep up a net cash balance of $500 million (USD) in that business.

Mobile payments market will reach $620 billion, worldwide

| February 4, 2016

A new report from Trendforce has shown that this year will have wallet apps taking off.

Research firm, TrendForce, has released a report in which its researchers have forecasted that mobile payments systems will be taking off at full throttle this year, which will come to a considerable relief to the financial institutions, retailers, tech companies, and other parties that have made massive investments into this tech.

As of yet, mobile wallets have yet to take off with consumers, despite the entry of Apple into the space.

The report showed that with both Samsung and Apple entering into the mobile payments ecosystem with a heavy push, it is likely that there will be a sizeable growth in this area that will propel it far beyond the level it had reached last year. In 2015, the total revenues that were brought in by the worldwide mobile wallet market are estimated, by TrendForce, to have reached $450 billion. That said, it is predicting that this figure will have made a far greater achievement by the end of this year. In fact, it is expecting that smartphone based payments will have reached a tremendous 37.8 percent year over year growth rate.

This will mean that mobile payments will have been able to hit the $620 billion mark, worldwide, this year.

Mobile Payments Growth - ReportNext year, the growth rate is expected to decrease, though it will still remain quite high, at a predicted 25.8 percent. The year after, it will drop again but will remain healthy at 19.2 percent and in 2019, that will slide again but will still grow by 16.1 percent. In the last year of the forecast, there will still have been a growth of $10.8 billion over what it had been the year prior.

When it comes to the success of Apple Pay as a mobile wallet option, both that company and many analysts continue to say that it will depend on how receptive China becomes to the brand and to that specific wallet app.

The report indicated that it will be Samsung Pay and Apple Pay that will make up a tremendous chunk of the smartphone based payment market and those two companies have been working hard to try to carve out as much of China as they possibly can. This has been a very challenging battle as both companies have manage to strike a deal with the government operated Chinese banking card payments processor, China UnionPay. These virtually simultaneous partnerships will mean that Chinese customers will have the choice between these two giants and their mobile payments services.