AT&T announced yesterday that they will begin selling to highly anticipated Blackberry Z10 on Friday, March 22 and that pre-orders for the Z10 will start today.
Blackberry, the Canadian based company formerly known as Research in Motion (RIM), once held a commanding presence in the cell phone arena in both the U.S. and across the globe. Now they are betting everything they have left on the Z10 and the soon to be launched Q10.
Just two months ago, after announcing their new company name, Blackberry debuted their new operating system Blackberry 10 on both of their new handsets. Showing off what seemed like a promising new software design, even critics had big hopes that Blackberry could regain its foothold.
News of the AT&T March 22 launching, along with a rumor about a possible buyout of Blackberry by Lenovo, had a very positive effect on its stock, causing share prices to rise 14 percent on Monday.
The speculation was started over a comment from the head of China's Lenovo Group Ltd, to a French newspaper that the computer company was considering an acquisition of Canada's BlackBerry in the future.
Blackberry, whose devices have already begun selling in Canada and other countries globally, said that sales have so far exceeded their expectations and hope that the trend continues when sales begin in the U.S. next week.
AT&T's Blackberry Z10 will sell for $199 on a 2-year contract, making it comparable to the two top selling phones, the Apple iPhone 5 and the Samsung Galaxy S3. Verizon and T-Mobile also plan to sell the handsets to consumers, but have yet to set a date.
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