Research in Motion Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Research in Motion - Coursework Example The Blackberry phones pioneered the era of smart-phones although the competition has grown in the recent years from other platforms such as Android, iPhone and Windows. The demand for Blackberry phone has significantly increased because most businesses have adopted enterprise technologies and there is a growing concern of employees who want to gain access to corporate data securely while out of office. Most cellular networks provide data services hence the Blackberry phone fits perfectly in the ecosystem. Demand has also been fuelled by the growing changes in buyers’ preferences. The smart-phone market is now majorly based on platform rather than hardware and this has increased the applications available to the buyer hence increasing the demand for the smart-phones. The mobile phones have become a central part of an individual’s life hence buyers require a device that can offer extra features (Baumol & Blinder, 2011). The customer base has also grown significantly due t o an increasing middle class who are attracted to buy the Blackberry phones. The increased demand has resulted in the exponential increase in sales and profits. The supply of smart-phones has also increased due to technological advancements that have made it easier and cheaper to produce them. They are many companies producing smart-phones and as such the numbers of phones manufactured is high. From the aforementioned, we realize that the supply has increased over time. Therefore, it is evident that more units have to be sold to attain profit. Smartphone demand growth The market structure of Blackberry phones can be described as a oligopoly. The main players in the smart-phone market are Apple (iPhone), Nokia (Symbian), Google (Android) and Microsoft (Windows Phone). The product offered by these competitors is differentiated through various tweaks to the operating system. The barriers to entry in the smart-phone market are very high. Infact, a company has to lay a huge capital inves tment and extremely aggressive marketing tactics in order to start off in this market. The pricing in this segment is fairly uniform and high. The smart-phone market is characterized by constant innovation if only to remain competitive. The turnover of clients is high since buyers would wish to try out the new and fancy applications in the different smart-phone platforms. Market Share Comparison (January 2012) In order for Blackberry to continue prospering in this market, there is need for continuous innovation and launching of new product. The market of smartphones is very dynamic and this requires that a company stays on the forefront of innovation. The other trend that has a promising future is the applications (apps) market. The buyers need applications in their phones that make their lives easier and full of fun. To prosper in this segment, Blackberry should seek to have a robust community of developers through giving of incentives. The recent data outages experienced should be a thing of the past as this may lead to mass exodus of current users of the services (Redo, 2008). The core datacenters should be backed up and multiple fail-over mechanisms put in place to guarantee subscribers service availability. Blackberry phones have very low price elasticity. This implies that even if the price changes, it has very little influence on demand. With more income, there is a likelihood of more buyers of the