1. Slide one: Methodology
Our study comprised mainly a number of qualitative interviews, each lasting a minimum
of 25-30 minutes. We approached various kinds of phone users, as well as retailers,
attempting to spread our study over the widest range of people possible.
The interviews started off with a general overview of people’s phone usage habits, their
past history with phones, how many phones they’d had, what they use phones for, and
what they look for in a phone. We tried to find out what our interviewees considered
absolutely essential in a phone, as well as additional bonus features that they looked for
in phones. We then asked them about their favourite phone brands and why they are so.
Based on their responses, most of which fortunately for us, tallied with our topic- i.e.
Blackberries and iPhones, we asked more questions, and guided the conversation towards
our primary focus- a comparison between iPhones and Blackberries.
Our study initially aimed to pinpoint which phone is better, more popular, and why.
However, our interviews provided no clear “winner” as such, and so we shifted the focus
of our study to a comparison of the two phones, and understanding why people buy both-
the good and bad points of both phones.
Slide Two: What people look for in a phone
There are a few things people nowadays consider essential in phones. For the younger
set, it was a camera, music, Bluetooth, etc. The older generation looked for internet
access, email capability, user friendliness and large memory capacity. As you can see
from the table, we asked our interviewees which of the two phones- the iPhone or the
Blackberry- fulfilled an essential “condition” of a phone more.
Our results were:
Essential application iPhone Blackberry
Camera X X
Music X
Bluetooth X
User friendliness X
Memory X X
eMail X
In our interviews, we also asked various phone users why they would buy either the
iPhone or Blackberry.
People said they would buy the blackberry mainly for its BBM (Blackberry Messaging)
service, which allows them to message other blackberry users for free. This proved to be
Blackberry’s strongest point, especially amongst the youth, who use text messages more
than the older set, and who can now message their friends who have even gone to college
abroad for free. Other reasons for the purchase of a Blackberry according to our

2. interviewees were that it looks nice, the games such as Word Mole and BrickBreaker are
very popular, and that email was very easily accessible on the go with a Blackberry.
The iPhone’s USPs were its unique and large touchscreen, which some users said was
very smooth and comfortable to touch, rather than tapping on keypads. The applications
which can be downloaded on the iPhone, which are varied and large in number were also
a big draw, especially amongst college students who liked playing them in class. Apart
from its super large memory capacity, as well as the fact that it looked classy, many
people said it was convenient, as it combined their phone and iPod into one entity.
From our study so far, the main insights we gleaned were that the iPhone’s touchscreen
and applications were its biggest USPs, whereas the Blackberry’s BBM feature was the
only major factor contributing to its popularity.
Slide Three: Why each phone became popular
The iPhone was launched at a time when brand Apple was huge, with the immense
popularity of iPods, the Macbooks, etc. The huge number of people using Apple products
learned quickly of the iPhone’s existence by visiting the Apple website, and the iPhone,
even prior to its release, became something of a cult figure amongst the tech savvy and
trend chasing youth. When iPhone released, sales skyrocketed, and people bought it
because it was such an of the moment trend. The concept of a phone with a touchscreen
of that size was new, and everyone wanted a piece of it. The online community spread the
word, and rave reviews about the look and applications of the phone led to its initial
popularity. It was only after the initial craze that people began to realize that the phone
lacked in basic features like Bluetooth and forwarding of messages (these were two
features that people mentioned in particular).
Blackberry:
The Blackberry smartphone has existed since 2002. It is only recently that the product
faced some kind of revival, due to the introduction of the Blackberry Messenger feature.
This feature was a boon to students who love messaging friends, even those who had
gone abroad to study, and found their salvation in the free messaging service. Most of our
interviewees said they had bought their Blackberries because all their friends had them.
In certain cases, this could be interpreted as peer influence, i.e. to be popular and trendy
and to have what your friends had, and in some cases, it was a matter of numbers- a large
number of friends with blackberries made owning a BB convenient, as you could now
contact them for free. The Blackberry, initially a business phone which relied upon its
instant email access as it’s USP, metamorphosed into a phone for the youth. The
multimedia features such as music, games, etc. were emphasized upon, to further
accentuate this, and it worked wonders for the Blackberry. One of the most quaint ways
in which the Blackberry managed to gain popularity was by the trend of putting one’s BB
pin number as a Facebook or MSN status. It elicited curiosity and envy amongst the
youth, and worked in the favour of creating more demand for the Blackberry.

3. Slide Four: Client Profiling
We covered a large range of people to interview, so as to obtain optimum and most
unbiased results. We divided the results of our study under certain client profiles so as to
help us understand their input better.
I. AGE
The first category was the age of the client.
Young people, that is, people under the age of 16, surprisingly formed a part of our target
base. The popularity of these two phones was evident from this fact alone! Or was it? We
discovered that a large part of them actually inherited an older sibling/parent’s phone, and
that it was not their choice alone. For those who actually had their own phones, the
iPhone was popular because of its applications and user friendliness, and the Blackberry
more due to peer pressure.
The youth, who formed the main part of our study said they bought the iPhone because:
(i) Applications
(ii) Music
(iii) It looks “cool”.
The Blackberry was mainly popular with them because of the BBM feature. It was a sort
of snowball effect that the Blackberry became so popular- three friends owned
blackberries, and so the rest of their friends also bought it to be able to message them for
free, and as more and more people bought Blackberries, the BBM community grew.
The older set mostly stayed away from iPhones. The touchscreen concept was too new
for them, and they preferred the good old QWERTY keypad, which they were already
used to. The Blackberry was useful to them because of its email feature, internet
accessibility, and GPS. The ones who owned iPhones owned them for certain
applications that were helpful to them in their line of work. Neither the music nor the
applications worked for the iPhone in the case of this group of consumers.
II. OCCUPATION
Students, businessmen, and professionals were the main occupations into which we
classified our target base.
The reasons for students to buy either phone are pretty much those of the youth. The
Blackberry has free messaging, has awesome games, and all their friends have them. The
iPhone looks cool and has applications, and can also double up as an iPod.
Businessmen shunned the iPhone, it didn’t seem professional enough to them, and they
had no use for the applications. The Blackberry, on the other hand, had already
established itself as a business phone in their heads, and they found the email access to be

4. highly convenient, especially for businessmen constantly on the run. Microsoft Office
was also supported by the Blackberries, and worked in their favour. The businessmen’s
main use for the phone was business, and NOT the BBM feature.
Professionals such as doctors said the iPhone had applications that were useful to them in
their line of work, and that they had no use for blackberries.
III. SEX
Another basis for comparison of the sales process was sex of the interviewee.
Males bought the Blackberry mainly because of the games. Being tagged a “business
phone” it seemed older, more mature than an iPhone. The BBM feature was not a
primary factor in purchase of the Blackberry. The iPhone gained popularity because of
the thousands of applications that could be downloaded on it, and also because boys
attached great value to the brand Apple.
Girls went gaga over the BBM messaging feature. They love to message and keep in
touch, and the free messaging service was the biggest factor in the purchase of a
Blackberry. The iPhone’s popularity was more for the giant camera, and because it
looked so nice. The “zooming into photos” feature of the phone also appealed a lot to
women, because it was so novel.
IV. PURCHASE PROCESS:
We also managed to divide the consumers into groups based on the purchase processes.
One type of user was someone who had received the phone as a gift. Both the iPhone and
Blackberry were very popular as gifts to give to your adolescent children. However, we
also found out that parents bought the iPhone as a present independent of any influence,
and that people who had received Blackberries as presents had usually asked their parents
for them.
The second type of purchase process was according to price. The person buying the
phone would have a budget, and depending on this, they would buy a phone which best
suits their needs. Both phones scored pretty low in this category, the iPhone was
considered super expensive, and the Blackberry was not reasonably priced either.
However, the cheaper models of Blackberry, recently released, gained popularity
amongst buyers.
The third type of purchase process was the typical go to a store with a general idea,
browse, look at alternatives, compare, decide and finally buy the phone. For the
Blackberry, people come in and say “I want to buy a Blackberry.” And they are unaware
of the difference between the models, the features, etc, and need to be explained. iPhone
buyers have a fixed idea, and generally spend less time making the purchase decision. For
buyers of these two phones, price is generally not an issue- they just look for the phone

5. that suits their needs the best. In fact, a few people said they’d buy the phone BECAUSE
it was expensive (this could be some kind of price illusion, that a high price equals
superior quality and the luxury factor comes in).
Slide Five: INSIGHTS:
Our observations during this study ranged from the surprising to the funny. We are going
to list the foremost of these below:
1. The iPhone and Blackberry crazes could not be as easily compared as we thought they
could be, as we realized later that it was the launch of a new product (the iPhone) versus
the revival of an old product (the Blackberry). Both phones had their reasons for their
popularity, and each has unique features the other doesn’t possess.
2. Both phones were popularized mainly by word of mouth. While the online community
spread the word of the iPhones imminent launch, it was the Facebook statuses and peer
influences that increased the popularity of the Blackberry. Although both phones are
widely advertised in the print media as well as online, most people didn’t even talk about
the advertisement being a factor in the purchase of the phone, but more about how
everyone had it, or that it was trendy.
3. There were two types of boys who bought the Blackberry. Those who wanted to play
the games, and bought it because it was a big, manly looking phone. These boys didn’t
really use the BBM feature, because they don’t message constantly, and don’t like being
annoyed by the messages. The other kind was the metrosexual man- the kind who liked to
gossip and message and talk- and they were the ones who bought the Blackberry for its
BBM feature.
4. Although the iPhone had more appealing features, such as the touchscreen,
applications, and looks, the Blackberry managed to match its popularity with its one main
USP- the BBM messenger feature, which, it seemed counted for more than all of the
iPhone’s features- so said the Blackberry users.
5. Users of neither of the two phones mostly said they wouldn’t want either phone. The
main reasons were that both were too big, or too expensive, or too complicated. People
said that there were less expensive and easier to use phones with the same features.
6. The brand Apple seemingly generated more brand loyalty than the Blackberry. Most
people didn’t even know that the Blackberry isn’t an independent brand, but a product of
a company called RIM. More BB users said they would convert to the iPhone, if the
iPhone had been cheaper. The iPhone users criticized the Blackberry a lot, and said they
would not change.