The Boy Genius has posted RIM internal documents revealing their plans for pre-paid BlackBerry sales. For those of you that followed our coverage of RIM’s investor conference call, you’ll know that RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie has been talking about pre-paid for awhile.
We’ve got a full gallery of RIM’s slides after the jump, but here’s a quick breakdown on why they’re so hot for pre-paid:
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– It targets people on a limited budget, with bad credit, or who don’t want a long-term contract.
– It unloads the financial risk off the carrier and onto the retailer.
– BlackBerry data increases the engagement of pre-paid users, thus lowering churn rate and increasing ARPU.
– It opens up the retail and indirect channels to RIM.
RIM’s looking at two different methods for their pre-pay plan. First off is the purchase of an unsubsidized device with users continually buying pre-paid cards to refill their account. The second method, and the one that is the most interesting, is BlackBerry in a Box, whereby the user purchases a BlackBerry and one year of BIS service in a box at retail, with the option to renew at weekly, monthly or yearly intervals once the initial term is up.
It seems like RIM has a very solid plan to reach new demographics and invade the retail space in a meaningful way. Post a comment and tell us your thoughts.
|via BGR|
