The new global marketing boss of BlackBerry today attacked the media for being overly negative about the troubled smartphone brand and insisted the much-delayed launch of its new range, now due in January, will be worth it.
“We need to distinguish between the media perception and the consumer perception,” said Frank Boulben, chief marketing officer of parent company Research In Motion, who pointed out that BlackBerry has 78 million subscribers throughout the world and “that number is still growing”.
BlackBerry has suffered from a series of troubled launches, technical glitches and profit warnings in recent years and he admitted “the downside” of RIM’s decision to develop its own operating platform for BlackBerry 10 has meant further delay.
“We are embracing change – we are not sitting still,” insisted Boulben, giving his first British newspaper interview since joining RIM last month. “The BlackBerry 10 platform will allow RIM to introduce a unique and differentiated smartphone,” he added, promising that the new device would allow users to move seamlessly from app to app “with one gesture” rather than the present “in-out” system on other phones.
“We want to invest in our own platform unlike many of our competitors,” declared Boulben in a thinly-veiled swipe at rivals such as Samsung which use Google’s “open” Android operating system.
BlackBerry was still the UK’s top smartphone brand last year, with a 27% market share, according to GfK, and is No 1 in many parts of South America and Asia.
