BlackBerry announced 2.7 million BB10 units sold last quarter on the shareholder meeting call, but declined to say how many were BlackBerry Z10 or BlackBerry Q10, the two phones out at the time.
The BlackBerry Q10 was set to be the jolt into the old qwerty keyboard smartphone days with added touchscreen benefits, but it seems there is completely no demand for the phone, with store owners saying that hardly anyone bought the device and some of those that did returned it.
An insider has said BlackBerry sales of the Q10 have been “dismal” and the company has failed to gain any traction with the new device. This is despite some early pundits saying the BlackBerry Q10 sold around 300,000 units in the opening weeks.
The early support for BB10 and the new devices has quickly been drowned by the new offerings from Android and Windows Phone. With Apple soon to release the iPhone 5S, we are sure the BB10 devices will be off the store shelves before the end of the year.
This puts BlackBerry, formerly known as RIM, in a tough place – BB10 is not getting any traction and it the qwerty keyboard days are officially over, with next to nobody wanting a BlackBerry smartphone when they could have a iPhone, Android or even Windows Phone for the same price.
BlackBerry is currently looking at different paths to explore, including putting the company up for sale.
