When the BlackBerry Z10 was launched in early 2013, interest was red hot, but the exorbitant price tag killed interest. BlackBerry was hardly a brand with the appeal of Apple so pricing the Z10 close to Apple’s top-of-the-line iPhone was suicidal. Thanks to a well-publicised write down, the Z10 today has a price tag of Rs 17,999 in India, but retails for as low as Rs 15,000 and is reportedly selling reasonably well.
The point of bringing that up isn’t to rehash the Z10’s woes. Rather, because of the Z10’s price today, the point is to question where BlackBerry India will place the Z3, BlackBerry’s new kid on the block and supposedly BlackBerry’s smartphone for the masses. Because the Z3 now squarely competes with what should have been its far more premium predecessor – the Z10 – thanks to fairly close price tags.
Built by Foxconn and jointly designed by BlackBerry and Foxconn, with the Taiwanese ODM taking up supply chain risks, the BlackBerry Z3 may fall in the mid-range for Indian smartphone buyers but for BlackBerry, it’s at the low end of its BlackBerry 10 line of smartphones.
