Thorsten Heins, chief executive of BlackBerry, said the mobile phone giant is encouraged by the growing success of the Z10 since its launch in January.
The Z10, powered by the new BlackBerry 10 operating system, has been launched in South Africa, Nigeria and Ghana in Africa as well as extensively across Europe, India and United Arab Emirates.
However, the Z10 will only be available in South Africa after March 20 this year.
Surprisingly, the Z10 has not been launched in the United States of America (USA), though Heins said a launch is planned for the country later this month. Launches in other countries are to follow.
Speaking at the Communitech Tech Leadership Conference in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, the company’s home town, Heins said the “feedback is very encouraging”.
Heins added: “What has been a real surprise for us is that BlackBerry 10 as a platform and product is attracting users that are currently on other platforms.
“We are just five weeks into this. We have just one product out in 21 countries, so it is early indications, but we are encouraged by what we see and hear from our carrier partners,” said Heins.
Furthermore, Heins said the touch-screen Z10 had surpassed BlackBerry’s expectations within developing nations such as India. Cheaper entry-level mobile phones are usually more popular than high-end devices like the Z10.
“We shipped into the channel product that we thought would have been good for at least five days and I got an emergency call from our manager in India, saying that they were sold out in two days. Now we are scrambling to re-load that channel,” said Heins.
BlackBerry’s future has looked bleak in the past year due to it losing ground in the market to Samsung’s Galaxy line, Apple’s iPhone and devices powered by Google’s Android operating system, which is leading the market.
The Z10 and the renaming of Research In Motion (RIM) to BlackBerry was part of Company’s strategy to regain their market share.
