BlackBerry Believes 850,000 Shipped Units Of KeyOne Was A Success

In 2017, TCL shipped 850,000 units of the BlackBerry KeyOne, which is the latest flagship smart device under the brand. When compared to how many iPhones Apple ships in any given quarter alone, that under one million number might seem paltry. However, it seems the people at BlackBerry actually considers it a success, which has publications scratching their heads.

BlackBerry executives made the rather startling declaration in an interview with The Verge when Francois Mahieu and Alain Lejeune from BlackBerry and TCL respectively said that last year was a success for them. The pair provided no actual numbers to back their claims, but Francisco Jeronimo from IDC dug into the matter and found that the total number of KeyOne devices shipped in 2017 was only above that of the Essential Phone, which had horrendous numbers.

On the other hand, this might be because BlackBerry is using a different metric to decide whether the sales were a success or not. Apparently, the executives are more interested in “channel presence” than actual sales numbers since it offers a more direct route to the customers that the company is targeting.

In this matter, TCL seems to have done a marvelous job, allowing for the KeyOne to be available in 50 countries and to be sold through 110 carriers all over the globe. This is incredibly important since distribution is the single most important factor in the success of any tech product in the industry.

Mahieu also spoke to CNET recently, saying that the next goal would be to capture at least three percent of the premium smartphone market with its own offering, which would translate to about 10 million units sold each year. Unfortunately, it would seem that analysts are quite skeptical that the company would actually be able to do this, considering how competitive the mobile device market has become.