T-Mobile to Stop Carrying BlackBerry Phones in Stores

By Jane McEntegart
published

T-Mobile says there isn't enough demand.

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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Jane McEntegart
12 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Vorador2
    And..there we go. I expect more to follow.
    Reply
  • JD88
    Failure to innovate means death. This should be a lesson to every other manufacturer out there. Don't rest on laurels of the past and focus on the future.
    Reply
  • thundervore
    The should axe them all together.

    Firms are not buying BB10 devices because they have to upgrade their BES servers and buy new licences. No company want to run 2 seperate BES servers because most people are on BES 5 and someone come in with a BB10 cannot be added on the BES 5. Companies are sticking with the 9930 and that is the last BB device many companies will buy because it works on the old BES
    Reply
  • AGTDenton
    Perhaps Microsoft can buy them as well to create loser valley
    Reply
  • g-unit1111
    Boy, really makes me glad I chose the HTC One over a Blackberry Z10, and I was heavily considering the Z10 at one point. BB10 looks great on paper but when you don't have the app support that iOS, Android, and even Windows Phone 8 have over it, you'll go the way of Web OS every time.
    Reply
  • kiniku
    But their big, promising, smartphone campaign failed horribly. So they did go. T-Mobile dropped them and the company went off on a fire sale to a consortium and so did you. Smart move on all parts.
    Reply
  • rauelius
    Sorry to be Captain Hindsite here, but how difficult would it have been for BB to adopt Android as an OS much in the same way that Amazon did with the Kindle Fire, while on top of having exclusivity to BBM and other BB services, they could also have their own App store, and getting Apps on it would have been as easy as it would have been to get them on the Amazon AppStore. Also, the ability to side-load Apps would have definitely helped.
    Reply
  • rauelius
    I understand that BB sorta did that with their latest OS, but that was more-or-less running an emulator for android to run android apps. I'm talking about Android as the base OS.
    Reply
  • Brandon Samuels
    BB Z10 really is "up to par". Just lack of enthusiasm vs. IOS and Android led to lower than expected sales. Too late in the game was their problem, but the Z10 really is a competitor. Most of my friends have high end Androids or IOS devices and they all like my Z10.... BBRY just didnt compete early enough.
    Reply
  • Brandon Samuels
    BB Z10 really is "up to par". Just lack of enthusiasm vs. IOS and Android led to lower than expected sales. Too late in the game was their problem, but the Z10 really is a competitor. Most of my friends have high end Androids or IOS devices and they all like my Z10.... BBRY just didnt compete early enough.
    Reply