BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins is happy with the way the BlackBerry 10 launch has gone, claiming it has bettered first week sales of any other BlackBerry device.
BlackBerry’s new smartphone, the Z10 (see review here), was launched last week in the UK before any other market. Heins is now claiming that in its first week it has more than tripled the sales of any other BlackBerry device released here.
“In the UK, we have seen close to three times our best performance ever for the first week of sales for a BlackBerry smartphone,” he said.
At the time of print, no further information concerning formal sales figures were revealed to What Mobile.
Phones4U has also said that over half of their 680 stores have sold out of the new Z10. Phones4U has an exclusive agreement to sell the white version of the phone.
“It has been a huge success and continues to sell extremely well. A large number of our stores did sell out of the white model on launch weekend,” said Scott Hooton, Phones4U’s COO.
“We have a longstanding relationship with BlackBerry and we’re delighted to report such a strong sales performance within less than a week of the new handsets going on sale.”
The story is similar in the company’s homeland of Canada, where Heins says it has sold 50% more than any other in that first week.
“In Canada, yesterday was the best day ever for the first day of a launch of a new BlackBerry smartphone. In fact, it was more than 50% better than any other launch day in our history in Canada,” Heins said.
At the launch event on 30 Jan, the company announced that it would no longer be called RIM (choosing its device’s name, BlackBerry, instead). As well as demonstrating its new BlackBerry 10 operating system (which had been the focus of several delays, the last of which was over 12 months), it also made the surprise announcement that the device would be available in the UK the next day, a world first, with the US and other markets following in February. It also announced a keyboard version of its smartphone, the Q10, which is expected to be launched in late February, early March.
Alicia Keys was also announced as its Global Creative Director, a title and role which remains vague.
