BlackBerry Bold dips $100 CDN to fight iPhone?

Rogers or Research in Motion could be allowing major price cuts to the BlackBerry Bold in a bid to improve the smartphone's competitiveness against the iPhone, if a new update is an indicator. Best Buy Mobile Canada's listing for the 3G BlackBerry now shows the device dropping from its official $300 Canadian ($248 US) contract price to about $200 ($165), or a full third discount. The deal lasts until November 27th and also bundles in a $50 Best Buy gift card.

None of the companies involved have explained the sharp drop, which comes just two months into the phone's life at Rogers and while AT&T in the US is poised to launch the Bold next week at $300 US. Officially, Rogers maintains its usual $300 price through its own company store.

Any price discount of such a level would require either Best Buy, RIM or Rogers to absorb a significant amount of the cut and points to a potential experiment or limited price slashing effort, either of which would be geared towards boosting sales in the holidays.

However, the drop has also appeared just as RIM has increasingly struggled to maintain the success of the past year. The Canadian company recently saw a steep drop in new users for October and reached an unwanted milestone when iPhones outsold BlackBerries worldwide in the last quarter, marking the first time Apple had outperformed its close competitor.

Rogers in particular has been one of Apple's better markets for the iPhone relative to the population, as the $200 asking price and new data plans have helped the carrier sell 255,000 iPhones in just the first quarter of sales in the Canadian market at the expense of rival carriers, whose best phones have often been BlackBerry Curves and Pearls. [via Mobile Syrup]

Filed under: iPhone, industry, mobile phones
Other story tags: AT&T, BlackBerry, Research in Motion, Best Buy, Bold