The chief executive of BlackBerry today boasted that sales of its new device, launched last week to much fanfare, have boomed in the UK.
Thorsten Hein, of Canadian company, needs the new BlackBerry 10 operating system to take off after a very tough few years that saw the company lose out to Apple and Samsung.
Critics said the BlackBerry was outdated, and speculated that the company would have to be broken up and sold off.
Sales in the UK have exceeded the firm’s hopes, he insisted today, with a substantial number of users moving from other platforms to try the new device.
“It’s beyond expectations,” he said. “White is sold out already. The black is hard to stock up again. It’s very encouraging. I won’t share the number because I need to verify it, but we are getting a substantial number of users moving from other platforms to BlackBerry. That is an interesting data point.”
He admitted to disappointment that the BlackBerry 10 will not be released in the US until March,
Hein pointed out that the US and its phone carriers have a rigid testing system.
“We need to respect that. Am I a bit disappointed? Yeah, I would be lying saying no,” he added. “But it is what it is and we’re working with all our carrier partners to speed it up as much as we can."
