Dubai: BlackBerry opened its first and exclusive flagship retail store in the Middle East in partnership with Axiom Telecom on Thursday in a bid to get closer to its customers.
“The region is an important market for BlackBerry and with the flagship store we want to give consumers a wider experience,” Kristian Tear, chief operating Officer at Blackberry, told Gulf News after unveiling the mid-range Q5 smartphone.
The store with an area of more than 1,000 square foot is located at Dubai Mall.
“We are glad to extend our smartphone portfolio and the price point with the addition of Q5. We are following our plan and increasing our footprint. We will be launching three more models this year,” he said.
Blackberry has already launched three models – Z10, Q10 and Q5.
The Q5 has a 3.1-inch IPS LCD display with a resolution of 720 x 720 pixels and weighs just 120 grams. It is powered by dual core 1.2 GHz processor with 2GB RAM and 8GB internal memory and expandable up to 32GB.
Blackberry will be launching the Q5 only in selected markets. The phone will go on sales across the region next month but Blackberry sold limited stocks on Thursday from 5pm.
The company did not disclose how many units of Q5 will be available at the store.
“The Q5 is a very good phone targeting the youth with different colours. Q10 sales have been phenomenal and much better than Z10. Q10 has been on par with other top-selling smartphones.
Samsung Galaxy S4 sales have been on par with Q10 and in certain shops Q10 has been selling more than S4,” said Faisal Al Bannai, CEO of BlackBerry retail and distribution partner Axiom Telecom.
He said opening of a flagship store will definitely give a boost to BlackBerry and spur sales.
According to research firm Gartner. BlackBerry sold 6.2 million smartphones globally with a market share of three per cent in the first quarter of this year. Blackberry had a market share of 6.8 per cent with 9.94 million devices sold in the first quarter of last year.
“In the UAE, BlackBerry had a market share of 27.2 per cent in the first quarter compared to 35 per cent in the fourth quarter of last year,” said Hamza Saleem, senior research analyst at IDC.
Etisalat announced pre-orders for the new LTE-enabled Q5 from June 21. The device will be available at Etisalat business centres and outlets from the last week of June..
As an introductory offer, Etisalat will offer 50 per cent discount on complete, unlimited and global BlackBerry packages for three months. New or existing customers would pay Dh40 per month for complete package, Dh93 per month for unlimited and Dh150 per month on global packages. When asked about BlackBerry platform embracing Android and iOS apps, Tear said that one of the value we have is “openness” and we open our device and management platform to others. That is the way the world is changing.
“We are confident in BB10 as a platform and the products we have. Obviously we see an opportunity for BlackBerry Messaging (BBM) to become the messaging platform in the world by opening it to other platforms like Android and iOS,” Tear said.
