BlackBerry lowers price of latest smartphone to regain market foothold

22 Sep 2014

BlackBerry has revealed plans to sell its latest smartphone at a lower price than competitors in an attempt to regain a foothold in the market.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the company’s Passport device will cost $599 in the US without subsidies. The recently-released iPhone 6 starts at $649 without contract, while Samsung’s Galaxy S5 costs around $650.

According to BlackBerry chief executive John Chen, the true value of the Passport is around the $700 mark. “But I figure that to try to get the market interested, we’re going to start a little lower than that,” he revealed.

BlackBerry unveiled plans for the Passport in July. The square-shaped smartphone attracted some criticism for its design but the company assert that it’s ideal for reading documents on the go, such as medical charts, spreadsheets, e-books and webpages. It will also sport the firm’s signature physical keyboard.

In December of last year, BlackBerry reported a Q3 2014 operating loss of $4.4bn.

Smartphone image via Shutterstock

Dean Van Nguyen was a contributor to Silicon Republic

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