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BlackBerry Z10 pulling in 55% new customers

Allan Swann
April 9, 2013

BlackBerry president and CEO Thorsten Heins has branded the firm’s fourth quarter financial performance as “outstanding”, after profits jumped from $14 million ( £9 million) to $94 million ( £62 million) in three months.

But what has got the analysts most excited was his comments after the numbers, namely, that the sales of its Z10 device (which launched in the UK on January 31 – see What Mobile’s review here) ‘ have not only topped one million in sales, but that 55% of those were new BlackBerry customers. He had previously said that the Z10 had the best first week sales of any BlackBerry device in company history.

Heins added that the demand for the Z10 exceeded the firm’s expectations and that production had to be increased.

Heins said the Z10 will be launching with a further 60 carriers across 40 countries in the coming weeks, with a planned 30 additional countries to come on board thereafter.

As part of the company’s financial announcement, BlackBerry CFO Brian Bidulka revealed that sales in the UK grew 13% sequentially to represent 13% ( £232 million) of the manufacturer’s total revenues.

However, global customer numbers declined by three million to 76 million during the same period.

Heins said: “Our financial transformation over the past 12 months has been outstanding. To say it was a very challenging environment to deliver improved financial results could well be the understatement of the year.

“We are pretty excited by the  statistics we are getting  from the market and that  is testament to the strength of the product.”

The Q10, the first BlackBerry 10 to feature a QWERTY keypad, is due to be released in the UK later this month or early May.

 

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