TORONTO – The BlackBerry Z10 is on sale in the all-important U.S. market, more than a month after the release of the embattled Canadian company’s new flagship device in Canada and the U.K.
AT&T Inc., the second-largest carrier in the United States by total subscribers, will begin selling the phone Friday for US$199.99 under a two-year contract.
Success in the U.S. smartphone market is considered by some analysts as key to the long-term viability of BlackBerry.
The Waterloo, Ont.-based company, which changed its corporate name to BlackBerry from Research In Motion, Ltd., has seen its once dominant share in the lucrative smartphone market collapse in recent years as competitions like Apple Inc. and Samsung have overtaken its lineup of devices.
BlackBerry Z10 sales started off strong in Canada.
Canadian wireless service provider Rogers experienced a record volume of BlackBerry sales on the day of the smartphone’s release. BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins also announced that the Canadian launch of the Z10 was the best day ever for the launch of a new BlackBerry.
According to research firm IDC, shipments of BlackBerry phones plummeted from 46 per cent of the U.S. market in 2008 to 2 per cent in 2012. The iPhone and Android now dominate.
Heins said the company has to regain market share in the U.S. for BlackBerry to be successful.
“You got to win here to win everywhere else,” he said. “That’s just the way it is. We’ve lost market share quite a bit, to put it mildly, and we absolutely need BlackBerry 10 to turn us around.”
– With files from Associated Press
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