It's been a rough couple of years for BlackBerry, and despite the introduction of BB10, 2013 hasn't been going much better. Earlier this week, the company revealed it would back out of the consumer market and instead focus on the enterprise market. On Thursday, T-Mobile said that it would no longer sell BlackBerry-branded smartphones from its retail stores.
Speaking to Reuters, T-Mobile's executive VP for corporate services, David Carey, said that it was inefficient to keep BlackBerry phones in stock in stores because there isn't a high demand for them. According to Care, BlackBerry phones are mostly purchased by businesses and they don't make purchasing decisions in stores.
T-Mobile isn't going to stop selling BlackBerrys. The company just doesn't want the phones taking up valuable stock space in the store when the demand for other phones is much higher. The company will display BlackBerrys in its stores, so customers can see and play with the devices when they visit, but you won't be able to buy one directly from the store.
BlackBerry earlier this month released its preliminary second quarter fiscal 2014 results and, not long after, the company revealed that it had agreed to court a $4.7 billion buyout deal offered by a consortium led by billionaire Prem Wasta's Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited. Toronto-based Fairfax already owns approximately 10 percent of BlackBerry's common shares, and will contribute these shares into the transaction. The consortium will purchase all remaining outstanding non-Fairfax owned shares for $9 in cash a piece.
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