It looks like BlackBerry (BBRY) is running out of ideas. Management of the beleaguered smartphone company had boldly projected back in 2014 that its Indian operations will be a key growth driver for its entire business. But the ambitious plan appears to be far from materializing. As per the data points available to us, there is a reason to believe that BlackBerry India’s handset sales have dropped to extremely low levels. How does this impact BlackBerry’s business and its shareholders going forward?

BlackBerry's India Woes To Continue

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Import Data

Let me start by saying that none of BlackBerry’s handsets are produced in India. The company imports its entire portfolio of handsets from manufacturing destinations abroad, such as Mexico and China. This import data, in turn, is published online by Zauba.com on a daily basis which makes it easier for us to track BlackBerry’s Indian-bound shipment volumes.

These numbers do not mean much when considered in isolation. But tracking BlackBerry India’s import trends over a period of time does provide us with some valuable insights about its sales performance. After all, sales of any product is generally correlated to its inventory and shipment volume. For instance, if a product is doing well in terms of sales, we’ll either see its import quantities rising over a period of time or it would run out of stock. Obviously, sales can’t be more than imported inventory levels.

BlackBerry India: Unitwise Imports Device Priv Passport Z10 Q10 Q5 Classic Z3 Z30 Total Device Code STV100 SQW100 STL100 SQN100 SQR100 SQC100 STJ100 STA100   Jul’ 14 0 0 10007 3561 2585 0 10425 4 26582 Jan’ 15 0 0 886 857 102 0 70 1500 3415 Feb’ 15 0 0 375 161 117 0 517 1842 3012 Mar’ 15 0 0 0 48 167 0 4443 26 4684 April’ 15 0 0 31 259 550 0 518 44 1402 May’ 15 0 0 3 0 177 0 423 26 629 June’ 15 0 0 710 110 0 0 2 1 823 Jul’ 15 0 0 1 56 157 0 369 83 666 Aug’ 15 0 0 114 865 315 330 1029 57 2710 Sep’ 15 0 0 4182 0 0 750 76 5 5013 Oct’ 15 0 3193 0 0 0 285 0 0 3478 Nov’ 15 0 2172 0 0 0 24 100 0 2296 Dec’ 15 0 2100 51 82 73 0 171 7 2484 Jan’ 16 2160 840 171 0 0 22 130 0 3323 Feb’ 16 1440 840 1 0 1 33 0 0 2315 Mar’ 16 1800 420 0 0 0 1 100 0 2321