BlackBerry Chief Won’t Tip His Hand on Pricing of the Priv, BlackBerry’s First Android Phone

BlackBerry CEO John Chen won’t yet tip his hand on pricing or distribution details about the Priv, his company’s first Android smartphone, Chen said on a Friday earnings call. “You'll have to wait for a little bit on that one,” Chen told a questioner who asked about the Priv’s gross margin and anticipated selling price. Chen conceded he “kind of jumped the gun" to announce the Priv as he did Friday “because it's leaking everywhere and I didn't think that it makes total logical sense for us to have this conversation when it's leaking everywhere and I won't talk about it.” Chen wanted only to confirm “that we are bringing our security know-how onto the Android ecosystem and we built a phone with the help of a lot of people, including working with Google,” he said of BlackBerry’s proprietary Enterprise Mobility Management security platform. BlackBerry has been “working on this strategy for a long time,” but “unfortunately it leaked, so I think it's best to let everybody know,” Chen said. BlackBerry has a pricing strategy in mind for the Priv, and “we are working with literally all the major carriers” to bring the Priv to market later in calendar 2015, he said: “The distribution strategy, you have to wait a little bit on that because we do have some choices.” The Priv, with a curved, “all-touch” screen, is BlackBerry’s “answer for former BlackBerry users who missed the physical keyboard” on BlackBerry devices, but also have come to rely on the ecosystem of apps available through the Google Play store, Chen said. The phone derives its name from “the BlackBerry core mission of protecting our customer's privacy,” he said. “That's how we thought about it.” Chen thinks the Priv’s “key takeaway here” is that BlackBerry continues to lead in the industry in mobile security, “and now we are bringing the BlackBerry security know-how into the Android ecosystem,” he said. “We can address a larger and growing segment of the enterprise space and we believed we could be a leader in this space.” Chen answered with a firm “absolutely” when asked whether it’s more “cost-effective” to bring the Android-based Priv to market than a BlackBerry 10-based device. That's because “a lot of the drivers” for the all the Android chipsets “are already in place,” he said. “I don't have to spend any time managing money for drivers,” he said. “I also don't have to do anything regarding the apps ecosystem, or the API surrounding that,” he said of Google’s application program interface protocols. “So all I need to do is to concentrate on security and the privacy features and add it to that ecosystem,” he said.