BlackBerry Radar: The trucking and asset tracking opportunity

In case you didn't know, BlackBerry is not only ramping up its portfolio around IoT security services and solutions, but they are also in the asset/fleet/cargo tracking market.  Based on telematics research available on compassintel.com, total global asset tracking market will reach $27.1B by 2023, growing at 14.8% compound annual growth rate, with North America holding a strong 37% of the market share. When you add fleet tracking and cold chain tracking to this, it become an even larger market opportunity. 

"The BlackBerry® Radar family of products is an all-encompassing asset tracking solution that gives fleet assets such as trailers, vans, containers, flatbeds, chassis and equipment the intelligence to securely communicate in near real-time."

Blackberry introduced BlackBerry® Radar (two versions including Radar-M and Radar-L) in 2016, and has really struggled to get to the market growth it needs to compete with the likes of Verizon Connect, Omnitracs (Qualcomm subsidiary), and others. This is a highly saturated market with 100s of companies competing just in the U.S. alone. The devices offer both an AT&T SIM and Orange SIM for connectivity, and customers can choose to pay all up front through a capital investment or pay a smaller up-front fee for the equipment and monthly recurring fee (MRC) for the services. There is also a lease option available for customers who prefer not to "own" the equipment. The primary telematics focus for BlackBerry is non-powered assets including cargo, low and high value shipping assets, and even cold chain assets. In an article in FleetOwner magazine BlackBerry SVP and General Manager Phillip Poulidis stated, "Radar customers are improving fleet efficiency on average between 7% and 10%." BlackBerry also stated a goal of reaching $100 million in revenue over the next three years from the telematics product.

A few additional notes...

• Upfront fees from $200-$400 per device depending on version, with $10-$20 per month per device for services
• Features include geofield mapping, driver location, trailer number identification, geofencing for landmarks, other 
• Polling or measuring of sensor data every 5-15 minutes (GPS/Cellular)
• Radar-L (light version) sensors: location, motion, door positioning
• Radar-M sensors: location, motion, door positioning, cargo capacity (% load up to 10% increments using infrared sensors), temperature, pressure, humidity (need this version to see what's in the trailer, i.e. dry vans, containers, trailers, cold chain)
• Customers include: Caravan Transport Group/Caravan Logistics (1K trailers, 250 trucks), Pana-Pacific (2.8K truck dealerships in NA), Contract Transport Services, Titanium Transportation Group, and Fleet Complete (partnership, formerly BigRoad)

Back in early October, Compass Intelligence attended the BlackBerry Security Summit and sat in on a session for BlackBerry Radar. We asked how this product is differentiated during the Q&A session.  BlackBerry  believes their differentiation revolved around a much longer battery life of the devices, as well as full support and easy installation in under 10 minutes. According to an article in Commercial Carrier Journal "BlackBerry Radar uses high capacity lithium chloride batteries. The batteries are not rechargeable, by design, to eliminate failure points of wired connections to an external power supply from the tractor or from solar panels" Battery life is based on how often polling takes place and can last from 3-10 years for the devices, which is a core benefit for managing thousands of devices for trucking and transportation companies.

All in all, BlackBerry will need to continue to push branding awareness in a very competitive marketplace, which may be challenging as it is not very well-known compared to the larger market players. The real opportunity would be for BlackBerry to set up a reseller/partnership ecosystem to push BlackBerry Radar (branded or white-labeled) to the masses, and this would mean partnering with other IoT telematics companies and wireless carriers, as well as non-traditional technology companies.

Get this research! Asset Tracking Market by Technology, Connection Type, Mobility, Location Determination, and Industry Verticals 2018 – 2023
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