It looks like good days are on their way back for the ailing mobile manufacturer, BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY), as its latest Smartphone offering, Passport, has met some shortage problems. Unlike the regular CEO’s reaction, the head of the company is happy with supply shortage considering it a sign of the increasing demand.
John Chen, CEO of BlackBerry, said that the shortage of Passport, latest Smartphone from the company, indicates that the turnaround efforts of the company are right in place. He added,
“I’m glad to have inventory issues. It shows that people want the phone. We took a very conservative approach and didn’t order too many.”
This is the first major device release after Chen took the post of CEO and the phone has exceeded company’s expectations.
After its launch, BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY)’s Passport recorded total pre-orders of 200,000 and it sold out within six hours of its launch on company’s website and within 10 hours after being launched at Amazon. The phone manufacturer witnessed decline in its annual shipments last year with only 13.7 million units as compared to the 52.3 million it shipped in 2010. The once dominating phone manufacturer lost its ground to touch screen devices from Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Samsung Electronics.
With “Passport,” the company has addressed its audience right and Chen earlier said that the company targeted 30% consumers by offering a phone for work. While talking about entertainment tools, he said, “That is not a space that we can afford to be in now. Being sexy and being a workhorse are two different things.” While considering BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY)’s expansion plans for China, Chen said,
“China is too big a market to ignore. It is clear that BlackBerry needs to and should be in that market.”
Earlier, Ron Louks, Head of the device arm of Blackberry, said that the company would release at least one device with a “wow” factor every year. He further added, “When it comes to design and being a little bit disruptive, we want that ‘wow’ factor. Not all of the products will have it, but we definitely have opportunities.”
This article has been written by Prakash Pandey.
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